r 






*C^ PRINCETON, N. J 



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Presented by Mr. Samuel Agnew of Philadelphia, Pa. 



SCUZ. 



Agnew Coll. on Baptism, No. 




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CHRISTIAN UNITY 



AISTD ITS EEOOYEEY 



JOHN S. DAVENPORT. 



NEW YORK: 
D. APPLETON AND OOMPANT, 

443 & 445 BKOADWAT. 
1866. 



Enteeed, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1SG6, by 

D. APPLETON & CO., 

In the Clerk's OfBce of the District Court of the United States for the 

Southern District of New Tork. 




00]^TE]^TS. 



PAGE 
Introduction, ,.. .. 5 

CHAPTER I. 

THE TRUE NATURE OF UNITY CONSIDERED. 

The dnity of Creation the great purpose of God in Christ — The Church to be the first 
example of this Unity — This the signilicance of Our Lord's Prayer in John, eh. svii. — 
The Unity of the Father and the Son the type of Unity in the Church — What is 
this Unity? — What it implies in the Church — This the last and perfect attainment 
of the Church — The initial ground of this Unity— Its complete development — 
The Church originally constituted as one having lost Outward Unity has now to 
work back to it, that she may be prepared for the coming of her Lord, . . 10 

CHAPTER II. 

ORGANIC UNITY THE MEANS OF SECURING THE UNITY OF THE SPIRIT. 

No Unity of Spirit -where there are Sects — Unity of Spirit not to be attained with- 
out Means — Are there any Divine Ordinances for the Preservation of Unity found 
in the Constitution of the Ministry ? — What is meant by Organic Unity ? — The True 
Constitution of the Church impressed upon her by the Lord — The Divine Consti- 
tution of the Church the means of bringinginto Subjection, 1, the Will; 2, the Intel- 
lect ; 3, the Affections— Universality necessary to its Effect, .... 28 

CHAPTER III. 

THE PRESENT STATE OF CHRISTENDOM CONSIDERED WITH REFERENCE TO UNITY. 

The great schism between the East and West — The schism caused by the Protestant 
Eeformation — This resulted not in dividing the Western Church into two great 
communities, but into a variety of National Churches, without any common head- 
ship — Subordinate divisions — ^Statement of the present condition of entire Chris- 
tendom — The Church, in God's sight, embraces all the baptized — ITie question of 
lay baptism— The Church not now appearing as one whole, but existing in frag- 
ments — Principles upon which Unity may be recovered, 55 



4 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE RECOVERY OF ORGANIC UNITY. 

Unity can only be restored by Supernatural Action— The Original Planting of the 
Church — The Eise of the Ecclesiastical System — Necessity felt for some Ordinance 
for Preserving Unity — Culminating at last in the Papacy — No Conventional Au- 
thority sufficient — The only possible Solution, the Supernatural Appointment of 
Men with Apostolic Powers — Does the New Testament warrant any such expec- 
tation — How it would be done, page . Tl 

CHAPTER V. 

THEORIES OF UNITY. 

The Episcopal theory of Unity, that the collective Episcopate is the Bond of Unity — 
But what is to unite the Bishops, who have been the chief agents of Schism ? — Gen- 
eral acknowledgment of Episcopacy by Protestant sects would not unite them 
with Eome, nor with the East, 86 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE ROMAN DOCTRINE OF UNITY. 

The Roman Church has always witnessed to Unity — Two distinct Ideas — Catholic 
Unity and the form of its Realization — Papal arguments — The Primacy of Peter — 
What it involved — His position compared with that of Paul — A Primacy in tho 
Apostolic College necessary that thoy might act as one — Arguments of R. J. Wil- 
berforce examined — The Bishop of Rome did not inherit Peter's primacy — What is 
the amount of the distinction that the early Fathers ascribe to the See of Eome — 
The Primacy of Peter a different thing from the Supremacy of the Popes — Admitted 
by Roman Catholic writers— Ffulkes on the Divisions of East and West — The first 
acts of Supremacy exerted by Constantine and his successors, .... 91 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE CONSTITUENT UNITIES. 

Principles announced by St. Paul— One Body— One Spirit— One Hope — One Lord — 
One Faith— One Baptism— One God and Father of All— These the Principles by 
which Unity was to be preserved, and by which it is to be recovered — Theological 
aspect of these principles — Necessity of going back to first principles, . . 106 




CHRISTIAN UNITY. 



' INTRODUCTION. 

The divided state of Christendom is a subject tliat 
never fails to excite the deepest interest in all wlio truly 
love the Lord Jesus Christ. There is an instinct in the 
Christian life which forbids Christian men to rest satis- 
fied with division. Ever since the consummation of the 
great schism between the East and the West, in the 
eleventh century, efforts have from time to time been 
made to heal the breach, though without any substantial 
success. The nearest approach to it was made by the 
Council of Elorence, in 1439 ; which, however, was ren- 
dered futile by the refusal of the Greeks to assent to the 
reconciliation. In the next century occurred the Protes- 
tant Reformation, since when no serious efforts have been 
made by the Roman Church to restore the broken con- 
nection, and the principles of Protestantism preclude 
every wish or desire for a union with Roman Catholics. 



6 INTKODUCTION. 

Some members of the English Church have endeavored 
to fix principles of approximation on the part of that 
communion vrith the Homan Church, one consequence of 
which has been the secession of large numbers of her 
best and ablest men to Rome. But this very result has 
shown how utterly futile must be any attempt to recon- 
cile these two ecclesiastical systems. Among Protestants 
there have been, and continue to be, discussions upon 
the union of various sects and churches, and a very 
strong feeling of the evil of division prevails. 

Special interest is manifested in the subject at the 
present time, and it is supposed that the state of the popular 
religious mind is favorable to the consideration of any 
suggestions offered for its solution. 

The interest that is felt on this subject generally, has 
essayed something like organization to secure the end. 

1. There is, I believe, a wide-spread agreement, es- 
pecially among members of the English Church, together 
with Episcopalians in this land, in concert with mem- 
bers of the Roman Catholic Church in Europe, for 
prayer to God to restore unity to divided Christendom. 
Such an agreement is always a hopeful sign of good. 
We know that unity is a result acceptable to God, and 
may be well assured that such a united prayer, going up 
from so many hearts, is the inspiration of the Spirit of 
God, who teaches the Church what to pray for. The 
answer may not come in the form in which many expect 
it, but if God's children ask for bread He will not give 
them a stone, and He will grant their requests in such 



INTKODUCnON. 7 

way that they shall know that He has heard their 
prayers. 

2. An effort is being made on the part of the Episco- 
palian bodies in England and America, to bring abont 
intercommunion between these churches and the Greek 
and Rnsso-Greek churches. When we consider the 
conflicting opinions on all the questions involved 
that prevail in these Protestant churches, to say nothing 
of the other party, we cannot suppose that any thing can 
be effected that will materially change the relations of 
these bodies to one another. The English Church, even 
if there were no other obstacles, can do nothing without 
the consent of the Government, and there is no proba- 
bility that the Government will give assent to any move- 

' ment that is at all likely to bring the Establishment into 
any intimate relations with other State churches ; and 
the Episcopal Church in the United States cannot speak 
with any unanimity on the doctrinal and ecclesiastical 
questions involved. The most that can be accomplished, 
therefore, is the interchange of good feeling and the in- 
crease of mutual intelligence. But still, if intercom- 
munion could be effected in the way sought for, it would 
come very far short of the unity which is the perfect con- 
dition of the Church. 

3. The various Protestant denominations in this land, 
who for the most part deny any exact divine organiza- 
tion of the Church, are engaged in an association for 
Christian union, the plan of which seems to confine 
itself to the cooperation of the different Christian bodies, 



8 INTEODUCTION. 

in such good works as they can perform together without 
surrendering their denominational principles. This has 
often been tried before, but has never jet resulted in 
any thing practical or efficient ; and in the absence of any 
assertion of organic principles which are to command 
the faith and submission of the Christian mind, it is dif- 
ficult to see how any union can be effected which shall 
have any binding force. 

In so far as these movements are indications of a con- 
viction of the wickedness and unprofitableness of the 
sectarian condition of Christendom, they are worthy of 
respect. We may well hope that the interest which is 
felt in this subject is the work of the Holy Ghost, draw- 
ing the minds of men toward a true Christian unity, 
just as a similar tendency to organization and unity is 
manifested in the region of the natural. 

The subject, however, needs to be discussed in the 
light of great principles ; and the attempt has been made 
in the following pages, to do this from a point of view 
different from that commonly taken. 

I. It is assumed that the unity of the Spirit is the 
end to be attained by the Church, and that its attain- 
ment is perfection. 

II. I have then endeavored to show that the outward 
unity of the Church is the means of attaining the in- 
ward unity of the spirit. 

III. As a preliminary to the solution of the problem 
of a recovered unity, I have taken a review of the pres- 
ent condition of Christendom with reference to unity. 



INTKODIJCTION. 9 

rV. I have stated the method in which unity is to be 
recovered. 

To this is added an examination of different theories of 
unity, and the whole is closed with some practical sug- 
gestions as to the conditions of any progress in the di- 
rection of a recovered unity. 

If this effort shall have no other result than to lead 
some minds to a more Catholic tone of thought on this 
subject, it will not be in vain ; and I shall hope that it 
may serve as a preparation for meeting future conditions 
of the Church, when the necessity of unity to the very 
existence of an organized Christianity will be manifest 

to all. 

1* 



CHAPTEE I. 

THE TRUE NATURE OF UNITY CONSIDERED. 

The Unity of Creation the great purpose of God in Christ — The Church to be the first 
example of this Unity — This the signiflcance of Our Lord's Prayer in John, ch. xrii. — 
The Unity of the Father and the Son the type of Unity in the Church — What is 
this Unity? — "What it implies in the Church — This the last and perfect attainment 
of the Church — The Initial ground of this Unity — Its complete development — 
The Church originally constituted as one having lost Outward Unity has now to 
work back to it, that she may be prepared for the coming of her Lord. 

The great purpose of God In Clirist we are told bj S. 
Paul is, " to gather together in one head (icecjiaXaicdoaaOai), 
all things in Christ, which are in heaven, and which are 
on earth, even in him." ' Unity, organization, bringing 
all things under headship to Christ, is the work of God 
which extends to all creation. All beings are to have 
their places assigned them, and to recognize those place^ 
in subjection to the Man to whom God has given all au- 
thority and power in heaven and in Earth. The rule of 
Christ is to be seen and manifested in every sphere of 
existence, so that through Him, as the manifestation of 
the Invisible, God may be all in all. If this result is to 
be attained in all the ranks of Creation it must first of 
all appear in the Church, which is the company of the 

' Ephes. i. 10. 




THE TEUE NATTJEE OF UNITY CONSrD:EKED. '"^] .IX -<£'/>> '^ '%_ 



first-born, and will, in the age to corae, occupy the place 
of precedency over all other classes of intelligences. S. 
Paul writes : " Unto me, who am less than the least of 
all Saints, is this grace given, that I should preach amon'g 
the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and make 
all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which 
from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, 
who created all things by Jesus Christ, to the intent that 
now, unto the principalities and powers in the heavenlies, 
may be made known by the Church, the manifold wis- 
dom of God, according to His eternal purpose which He 
purposed in Christ Jesus, our Lord." ^ 

The Church then — the body called out from the 
world in Christ — is to be the example of the fulfilment of 
God's purposes in Creation. It is by the Church that 
the divine wisdom is to be manifested, and the purpose 
to gather all things together in one head under Christ, is 
to be declared. It would follow of necessity that first of 
all, this unity which is the end of God's works, should 
be made to appear in the Church. The Church that is 
to witness to the creation of the heading up of all things 
in Christ — of the perfect organization and order of every 
created intelligence under the rule of the Man exalted 
to His Father's right hand, must, in order to such a wit- 
ness, be itself constituted in unity under Him who is its 
head. And we can thus see the more readily what is the 
significance of the prayer of our Lord in the 17th chap- 
ter of John : " ISTeither pray I for these alone, but for them 

' Ephes. iii. 8-10. 



12 THE TRUE NATURE OF UNITY CONSIDEKED. 

also that shall believe in me through their word ; that 
they all may be one ; as Thou Father art in me and I in 
Thee, that they also may be one in us ; that the world 
may believe that Tliou hast sent me. And the glory 
which Thou gavest me I have given them ; that they 
may be one even as we are one, I in them and Thou in 
me, that they may be made perfect in one ; and that the 
world may know that Thou hast sent me, and hast loved 
them as Thou hast loved me." ' The Church is the or- 
gan whereby the Divine glory is to be made known, as 
the means of gathering into one head all things in 
Christ. The Divine glory is seen in the unity of the 
Father and the Son, and that unity can only then be 
manifest to the Creation, when those whom God hath 
chosen out of the world and given to His Son, are so 
united as to present an image or reflection of that unity. 
Hence it is, that by S. Paul the perfect result of God's 
actings in the Church is expressed by the attainment of 
unity : " Until we all come into (eig) the unity of the 
Faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a 
perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the ful- 
ness of Christ." "" It is this attainment which our Lord 
contemplates in His intercessory prayer — the prayer 
which we may not doubt He continually offers for His 
people before His Father's throne. This prayer must 
have its answer, for whatever the Well-Beloved asks of 
the Father will surely be granted. The delay in its 
complete fulfilment furnishes no cause for doubting its 

' John xvii. 20-23. ^ Ephes. iv. 13. 



THE TRUE NATURE OF UNITY CONSIDERED. 13 

ultimate accomplislimeiit. We are held to the assurance 
that the time will come when there shall be on earth a 
company of those who believe in Christ, who shall be so 
united one to another, as to realize this unity here de- 
scribed — the unity which subsists between the Father 
and the Son. 

This now is the unity of the Spirit, which S. Paul 
exhorts the Ephesian Christians to preserve — " endeavor- 
ing to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." ^ 
It had its exemplification at the beginning of the Grospel 
dispensation. It existed and was a thing to be zealously 
kept. There were causes even then in operation, as we 
learn from the Epistles to the Corinthians, the Philip- 
pians, the Galatians, the Hebrews, and indeed from al- 
most all the Epistles, which threatened to disturb it ; 
these causes have for centuries operated to such an 
extent in Christendom, that the problem now is, not how 
to preserve unity, but how to recover it. 

The unity thus referred to is something deeper and 
more mysterious than any mere ecclesiastical unity, how- 
ever necessary that may be for its attainment. It is 
something more real and vital than any consent or 
agreement of sects one with another. It is a unity 
which has no parallel in human or finite relations : 
" That they may be one ; as Thou Father art in me and 
I in Thee, that they also may be one in us (I in them 
and Thou in me), that they may be made perfect in one." 
It is a unity that results from believers partaking of the 

^ Ephes. iv. 3. 



14 THE TEUE NATUEE OF UNITY CONSIDEEED. 

glory whicli the Father gave to the Son, and which He 
had given to them. The more we attempt to compre- 
hend this mystery, the more does it appear to pass all un- 
derstanding. What can we say of that nnity, whicli is 
thus set forth as the type of the spiritual unity in the 
Church ? What is the unity of the Father and the Son ? 
On such a topic we must speak and write very reverent- 
ly, lest we should be intruding into what is not revealed. 
But as this is set before us as the type of the unity of 
the Church, we may venture to look into it with such 
light as Holy Scripture casts upon it. 

The unity of the Father and the Son consists in the 
participation by each of the Divine Persons of the same 
substance, and their possession of one and the same Spir- 
it (who is also a Person), while yet their personality is 
unimpaired, and while there is a different sphere of act- 
ings of the two Divine persons ; still there is that relation 
between them that the acts of each become the acts of 
the other. The Father is the source of all Being. The 
Son is begotten of the Father, and it is by Him that the 
will of the Fatlier is carried out. The Spirit proceedeth 
from the Father, and is the giver of life to all creation ; 
but the Spirit which proceedeth from the Father is also 
in the Son, and proceedeth from the Son, and herein is 
the bond of unity. In every man there is one individual 
spirit which is in him and not in another. No man can 
impart his own life to another, or cause his spirit to re- 
side in another. Hence, though all men are partakers of 
the same nature, and in this respect are one, yet is not 



THE TEUE NATUKE OF "UNITY CONSIDEEED. 15 

the luiity complete. In tlie Father and the Son, however, 
there is one Spirit who is also a Person and who can re- 
side in both, so that here is a unity not conceivable 
among creatm'es. The Son is in the Father, and the 
Father is in the Son. 

As this therefore is the nnity of the Divine persons, so 
does the unity of the members of the Body of Christ con- 
sist in this, that as they are by the Holy Ghost partakers 
of the one nature of Christ, and thus He is " in them," 
so they are by virtue of their union to Him one with the 
Father also — " I in them and Thou in me" — and there- 
fore in the highest sense one with another. There is 
among the members of Christ a mystical union, to Him 
and to one another, which lies quite out of the region 
of natural modes of conception, and is known only by 
Faith. This is clearly implied in such passages of Scrip- 
ture as the following : "Abide in me and I in you. As 
the branch cannnot bear fruit of itself except it abide in 
the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me. I am 
the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me 
and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit ; for 
without me ye can do nothing. K a man abide not in 
me, he is cast forth as a branch and is withered, and men 
gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are 
burned. If ye abide in me and I in you, ye shall ask 
what ye will and it shall be done unto you." ' " Know 
ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus 
Christ were baptized into His death ? Therefore we are 

' John XV. 4-8. 



16 THE TRUE NATURE OF UNITY CONSmERED. 

buried with Him by Baptism into death, that like as 
Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the 
Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life," 
&G. * " And now little children abide in Him, that 
when He shall appear ye may have confidence and not 
be ashamed before Him at His coming." ^ What is im- 
plied in these words is an actual relation to Christ, which 
is not mere verbal, or external, but real and vital, as 
proceeding from the participation of His life ; and as all 
who truly believe in Christ and conform to His command- 
ments are said to be in Him — to be members of Christ — 
members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones, so 
must they also be one with each other. 

The unity of the Father and the Son involves also the 
most perfect oneness of mind and purpose. There are 
no varying purposes, no divergent actions of the Divine 
persons. "The Son can do nothing of Himself, but 
what He seeth the Father do ; for what things soever the 
Father doeth those also doetli the Son likewise." "I 
came not to do mine own will, but the will of the Father 
which sent me." And to complete the parallel, there 
must be among the members of Christ the same identity 
of will, of purpose, and of aflfection— all in subordina- 
tion to the Head. 

Such a perfect unity as is shadowed forth in the 
prayer of our Lord is the last and perfect attainment of 
the Church. It is a result to be arrived at, not one 
which is perfect from the beginning. This is apparent 

' Rom. Ti. 3, 4, &c. ' John ii. 28. 



THE TEUE NATUKE OF UNITY CONSIDEKED. 17 

jfrom the words of St. Paul already referred to : " Till 
we all come into the unity of the faith and of the knowl- 
edge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, to the 
measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." Here 
attainment is contemplated, growth, which shall result 
in perfect nnity. This is involved in the words, too, of 
the intercessory prayer. The Lord asked his Father, not 
only that His disciples might partake of that grace which 
should unite them into one body, bnt that the unity of 
the body might be preserved and developed, until there 
should be found in the body of the faithful, a oneness 
which should be parallel with that of the Father and the 
Son. The prayer looks to an end. iJ^othing is implied 
in its terms as to the time when that end shall be reached. 
It contemplates a working in a body, which can only be 
complete as that body attains its maturity. When that 
end is attained, then the Bride will be perfect and pre- 
pared for the marriage, and the Bridegroom will come 
and take her to Himself. The time, therefore, that is 
covered by this prayer is the entire period of the Chris- 
tian dispensation, during which the Church is being per- 
fected. It is a result not yet attained, but which must 
be in a process of attainment. 

The unity of the Spirit, therefore, may be considered 
under the two heads of its initial ground and its com- 
plete development. 

I. From the Holy Scriptures we learn that it is by 
the ordinance of baptism that men are initiated into a 
participation in the unity of the Body. " By one Spirit 



18 THE TRUE NATURE OF UNITY CONSEDEEED. 

are we all baptLzed into one body, whether we be Jew 
or Gentile, whether we be bond or free ; " ' "As many of 
you as were baptized unto Jesus Christ were baptized 
into His death ; " and thus by baptism are " planted to- 
gether," both in the likeness of His death and of His 
resurrection.'^ For this reason it is proper to say that all 
the baptized, speaking generally, have a participation in 
the unity of the Body ; they are, in some sense, members 
of the body of Christ. This is what we call the " initial 
ground " of unity. It is based upon the incarnation of 
the Word. The Son of God came into our nature and 
became completely one with humanity, a member of the 
race, of which He was constituted the new head. Tak- 
ing our nature into union with His own, He cleansed 
and purified it. Passing through the grave and gate of 
death, He destroyed in it all remains of corruption and 
infirmity ; and rising from the dead and ascending to 
the Father, He presented our nature in His resurrection 
body to His Father, pure and undefiled. Through the 
operation of the Holy Ghost He imparts to those who 
believe in Him the virtue of His resmTection life, by par- 
taking of which they dwell in Him and He in them. 
This participation is not a mere influence, it is not a 
mere moral efiiect produced in the region of the mind 
and aflections. It is an actual imparting of the vital 
energy of His own resurrection body, which thus becomes 
a new life. It is the introduction of a new vital element, 
which renders possible a true s])iritual obedience. The 

' 1 Cor. xii. 13. ' Rom. vi. 4, C. 



THE TRUE NATURE OF UNITY CONSEDEKED. 19 

introduction of this supernatural principle, then, is the 
element of unity. It is not natural life which is the 
basis of unity, but a supernatural life, which, by the 
operation of the Holy Ghost, comes from the person of 
the Incarnate Word, risen from the dead and entered 
into a spiritual body. 

If the inquiry should arise, How is this possible — the 
transmission of the life of Jesus to men ? the answer is 
twofold : 

First. The same which the Lord gave to the Caper- 
naites when they said, " How can this man give us his 
flesh to eat ? " " What if ye shall see the Son of Man 
ascend up where He was before ? It is the Spirit that 
quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing." The change 
from the natural to the spiritual body, and its ascension 
to heaven, alters the case. This man, as you now see 
Him, cannot give you His flesh to eat — can do nothing 
answering to that form of words ; but in the spiritual 
body He may impart it to you as a spiritual substance. 
What is absiu'd in one state of facts is admissible in an- 
other. And so the conditions which are applicable to 
the natural life of a man, do not hold with reference 
to the spiritual nature of Him who is the Word made 
flesh. We cannot argue from the case of the natural to 
the supernatural. It is a matter of faith. All that can 
be said by way of argument upon the subject, is to show 
that there is no presumption against it. 

Secondly. One human spirit cannot impart its own 
substance to another ; but this limitation does not apply 



20 THE TKUE NATUEE OF UNITY CONSIDEKED. 

to the Divine Spirit. The mystery of the Trinity ex- 
tends itself to the body of Christ. As the one Spirit is 
in the Father and the Son, so does He, proceeding fi*om 
both the Father and the Son, also impart the life of the 
Son, incarnate and glorified, to the members of the 
Church. The Church is the temple of the Holy Ghost, 
and He dwells personally in every member of the Chm*ch 
in whom the conditions of a perfect unity with Christ 
are fulfilled. The faith which admits the Trinity, need 
find no difiiculty in the truth of the oneness of the bap- 
tized with Christ. 

It is thus that in the initiatory sacrament, there is im- 
planted in the spiritual constitution of the baptized the 
germ of that spiritual life, which, in its perfect maturity, 
develops into perfect unity. 

We come, therefore, to consider the second head under 
which the unity of the spirit is to be considered. 

II. The element or germ of unity being thus im- 
planted by the impartation of a supernatural life, re- 
mains to be developed to its manifestation, in the col- 
lective body of those who believe in Christ through His 
Word, ministered in His Church. This result involves 
an entire unity of faith, of hope, of purpose, of afiection ; 
and where this exists, there will be the perfect unity of 
the Spirit — the Lord's prayer will have been answered. 

First of all to be attained is " unity of faith and of the 
knowledge of the Son of God." Without this, all appar- 
ent unity is delusive. It has been the instinct of the 
divine life in the Church resisting separation, which has 



THE TKUE NATURE OF UNITY CONSEDEEED. 21 

in past ages maintained the conflict for the integrity and 
unity of Christian doctrine. Tliere has ever been a deep 
conviction of the necessity of an entire agreement in all 
that was properly dejide — all that related to the knowl- 
edge of God and of Jesus Christ. However much con- 
troversy may have heen embittered by personal interests 
and worldly motives, yet the teachers and confessors of 
past ages — those who, like Athanasius, have withstood 
a world in defence of the last iota of truth — have been 
impelled by the conviction, that the very existence of the 
Church deiDended on the maintenance, unimpared, of 
the faith once delivered to the saints. The heretics have 
in all ages been ready to assent to a variety of creeds — 
a difference in forms of expression for declaring the most 
fundamental and eternal truths — those in which Chris- 
tianity as a system consists ; while the party that has 
contended for the unity of the body has always been 
strenuous for the assertion of fixed forms of faith. 

It is manifest that differing dogmas will and must re- 
sult in differing sentiments and practical conclusions. 
The office of the Gospel, fully administered, is to " cast 
down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth 
itself against the knowledge of God, and to bring every 
thought in subjection to the obedience of Christ." The 
truth is one thing and not another. There may be some 
things relating to the religious life which are matters of 
opinion ; but this is not the case with those which relate 
to the knowledge of the Son of God. Two differing 
opinions cannot be equally admissible concerning the 



22 THE TEUE nStuK^O^^^^Y CONSIDEKED. 

person or tliework of Christ, or His relation to His 
followers or to the Church. One or the other must be 
wrong, and it belongs to the Church, as the witness for 
the truth, to define doctrine and say, " This is the 
Catholic faith, which except a man believe faithfully he 
cannot be saved." * It is the part of faith to submit to 
divine revelation — and opinion is not faith. There is no 
faith where one is doubtful whether what he believes is 
or is not the very truth of God. The admission of a 
variety of beliefs in the Church would unsettle every 
belief, so that no faith were possible. 

St. Paul is very urgent upon the Churches to main- 
tain perfect unity of conviction. To the Corinthians 
he writes ( 1 Cor. i. 10) : " Kow I beseech you, brethren, 
by the name of om' Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak 
the same thing, and that there be no divisions among 
you, but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same 
mind and in the same judgment." To the Philippians 
(ch. iii. 3) : " If there be, therefore, any consolation in 
Christ, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and 
mercies, fulfil ye my joy that ye be like-minded, having 
the same love, being of one accord, of one mind." To 
the Thessalonians ( 2d Epis. ii. 15 ) : " Therefore stand 
fast and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, 
whether by word or our epistle." These and other pas- 
sages, having a similar bearing, make it apparent that a 
complete and unbroken unity in the intellectual convic- 
tion of every member of the body, in respect to all that 

' Athanasian creed. 



THE TEUE NATETEE OF UNITY CONSIDERED. 23 

can be called the knowledge of Christ— all that relates 
to Him in every aspect of His work — is the most essen- 
tial condition or prerequisite of the unity of spirit which 
is implied in our Lord's prayer. To specify doctrines 
would give a direction to this discussion which is not 
intended, and is therefore avoided ; but we may say this, 
that in order to the realization of unity, there must be 
such an exhaustive and comprehensive method of recog- 
nized teaching on the matters of faith, as shall preclude 
all controversy, and shall cover every question which 
can possibly arise as a cause of separation. The Church, 
the body of the faithful, must reach such an attainment. 
The idiosyncrasies of intellect which strive to assert 
themselves must be mastered by the truth. The pecu- 
liarities of disposition, of temperament, of natural life, 
even, must give way so far as to recognize what truly 
comes from God. The pride of life, the consciousness 
of power and of intelligence, which arrays itself against 
the authority of the Lord, must be sacrificed. Spir- 
itual truths are manifested in opposite (not opposing) 
poles, and much of the division which has given rise to 
sects, has resulted from parties considering one side of 
the truth, to the exclusion of the other. Of this the 
Calvinistic and Arminian controversies of our own 
time furnish a pertinent example. There is truth in both 
sides, and it is the office of a true spiritual discernment 
to see both sides of the truth in harmony. The intel- 
lectual tendencies of different classes of persons have led 
them to assert the one and the other side as the exclusive 



24 THE TETJE NATTJEE OF UNITY CONSIDEKED, 

truth, while the mind that is regulated not by its own 
natural tendencies, but by the faith which is the gift of 
God, will embrace the truth contained in both sides, and 
contemplate them in harmony as one. Such a reconcil- 
iation is not of the nature of compromise — does not in- 
volve the surrender of a truth or the admission to an 
equal standing with it of an error, but it is the victory 
of faith over the divisive tendencies of the fleshly intel- 
lect. Faith wrought by the Holy Ghost is operative in 
the spirit and works by love. It is light in the intellect, 
and life and energy in the will. Faith is unity so far as 
it is spiritual and not corrupted by the fleshly under- 
standing. The things in which faithful men differ, are 
either matters of opinion which are not faith, or points 
which have little or no relation to their belief, and should 
never be brought into religious controversy. 

The attainment of this unity of Faith and of the 
knowledge of the Son of God, is the complete develop- 
ment of the Spiritual life imparted to the baptized. It 
is the result of growth, not the effect of argument or 
controversy. It is effected by the Holy Ghost working in 
the body of the baptized, and knitting them together 
into one. When realized, it will be the answer to the 
prayer of the Lord, that they all may be one, for then the 
one Spirit which is in the Father and the Son, abiding also 
in the Church, will effect unity of knowledge, unity ol 
purpose, unity of love. The will of the Father will be 
the controlling will of the whole body. The knowledge 
of the Son, as the manifestation of the Father, will be 



THE TEUE NATUEE OP "UNITY CONSIDERED. 25 

tlie light lighting every man. The carrying out of the 
pui'pose of God as manifested in His Son will be the sole 
desire and intent of every individual member ; while the 
perfect love which casteth out fear, the love of God 
shed abroad in the heart, and extending itself to all crea- 
tion, will be the perfection of the chain of unity. 

The Church was born in the unit}'^ of the Spirit, so 
that St. Paul when he wrote could say without the need 
of any qualification, " There is one body." There had as 
yet arisen no schism in the body. There were not two 
or more companies of Christians claiming each to be the 
Church or fragments of the Church. 'No outward breach 
of unity of the Spirit had occurred, and so the exhorta- 
tion was to preserve what already existed. 

But the Faith out of which this unity sprang was as 
yet immature. It needed to be tried, and in the trial its 
integrity yielded. The spirit of schism early entered 
and continued to work. St. Paul himself foretold an 
apostacy, and one of its results is the schism of which 
we now see the fruits. The unity of the Spirit does not 
prevail, and believers are not one as the Father and the 
Son are one. There can be no unity of Spirit when sects 
are allowed or recognized. 

The Church now, therefore, has to work back to the 
unity which once she possessed and has lost. Her great 
work is to recover the unity of the Spirit, so that it can 
again be said in fact as well as in idea, " there is one 
body." She has to " grow up in all things into Him who 
is the head, even Christ," so that there may be found on 
2 



26 THE TEUE NATUEE OF UNITY CONSmEKED. 

earth a body, wliicli has attained to the knowledge of the 
Son of God in its perfection. She has to outgrow or 
throw off every thing that belongs not to the very essence 
of the Faith. She has to enlarge her understanding of 
the Gospel, so as to recognize and embrace every thing 
that does belong to, or legitimately flow from the true 
doctrine of Christ as revealed in God's word. The work 
of recovering unity involves not contraction but enlarge- 
ment. It is not elimination, but expansion, that is re- 
quired. Kot breadth, but narrowness, is the cause of 
schism. It is not affirmation but negation which has 
given origin to sects. The Church is built doctrinally 
upon the affirmation of the truth of the Incarnation. It 
is the refusal to affirm and recognize this truth in all its 
bearings that has been the occasion of schism. Negation 
limits the view and restricts the flow of charity. Per- 
fect unity takes in every fragment of truth and every 
form of its practical realization, whether in doctrine, in 
organization, in worship, or in morals, and assigns to 
every truth its place in the entire system. This state- 
ment might be illustrated by particulars, but for the wish 
to avoid a polemical tone in this discussion ; but it is his- 
torically true. Every truly Christian sentiment has its 
origin in the Catholic faith, and that faith therefore 
must be sufficient to comprehend them all. 

Such a unity of Spirit must be attained before the 
Church can be prepared to be received by her Lord, " as 
a bride adorned for her husband." " My dove, my un- 
defiled is one." "Whether this unity shall include all the 



THE TKUE NATUKE OF UNITY CONSIDEKED. 27 

baptized or not, it is certain that there must be a com- 
pany on the earth, in whom the unity of the Father and 
the Son shall have its manifestation, so that it shall be a 
witness to the world. It would be according to analo- 
gies in nature and in grace, that such a, recovered unity 
should spring from a nucleus, gathering to itself those 
who might be found prepared to receive the truth, so 
that they might " grow up into Him who is the head in 
all things," expanding until the full number necessary to 
its perfection should be gathered in. The effecting of 
such a unity is the crowning work of the Holy Ghost in 
the Church. It is the last and highest result and appli- 
cation of the life of Jesus in this present dispensation. 
Only one thing more remains to fulfil the work of sal- 
vation, and that is the raising of the dead in Christ. 
This will not be done until the Lord Himself comes forth 
from His Father's right hand, and a new series of divine 
acts begins. Perfect unity is the highest manifestation 
of the power which is now dispensed by Him through 
the Holy Ghost from His Father's right hand. This 
power is competent to overcome every hindrance, and 
bring about a complete and perfect accordance in all 
things in the Body of Christ. 



CHAPTER II. 

OEGANIC insriTY THE MEANS OF SECUPvING THE UNITY OF THE 

SPLBIT. 

No Unity of Spirit where there are Sects — Unity of Spirit not to be attained with- 
out Means — Are there any Diyinc Ordinances for the Preservation of Unity found 
in the Constitution of the Ministry ? — What is meant by Organic Unity ?— The True 
Constitution of the Church impressed upon her by the Lord — The Divine Consti- 
tution of the Church the means of bringing into Subjection, 1, the Will; 2, the Intel- 
lect ; 3, the Affections — Universality necessary to its Effect 

We have hitherto been regarding the unity of the 
Spirit, in which consists the perfect attainment of the 
Church. Unity is an end, not only a means. We are 
to desire unity, not merely for the strength it will give 
against enemies, or for the sake of increasing the num- 
ber of conversions, but because the Church is the sphere, 
where first of all, the great purpose of God to gather 
all things under one head in Christ is to be exemplified. 
The attainment of this unity is the very chiefest result 
of the probation of the Chm*ch. In the Church first, is 
this perfect subordination to a head, and perfect union 
in the head to be seen, that the world at large may 
also receive the manifestation of the Father through 
the Son. 

It is too manifest to need sober argument, that unity 



SECUEESTG THE "UNriY OF THE SPIEIT. 29 

of spirit cannot exist where there are sects. Sects arise 
from an imperfect faith — an imperfect knowledge of the 
Son of God. They involve differing views of matters 
relating to the faith. They imply the absence of any 
bond of peace whereby to preserve unity. "Where there 
are sects, men are not " perfectly joined together in the 
same mind and in the same judgment " (1 Cor. i. 10). 
Sects arise from " one saying I am of Paul, and I of 
Apollos, and I of Cephas " (1 Cor. i. 12). Sects spring 
either from difference of doctrine concerning Christ 
Himself and His way of salvation, or from differing 
views of the relation He sustains to His Church and the 
way in which it should be ruled, or from preferences as 
to worship, or worst of all, from some merely se ctional, 
national, or personal interests. How absurd, then, to talk 
of unity of spirit in the midst of sects ! The fact most 
sorrowful of all in this day, next to the existence of sects, 
is, that many are found who defend sectarianism on prin- 
ciple, as a condition of the Church acceptable to God 
and profitable to men. ISTo union of sects where such 
principles are maintained, is any approach to unity. 
The very first element of unity is wanting. 

The unity of the Spirit cannot be attained without 
means. The work* of the Holy Ghost is not immediately 
upon men, but mediately, through ordinances. For 
every appointed result in the Church, there is a means 
appointed by God. For the attainment of every end 
there is an ordinance, and we cannot suppose that an 
end so near the heart of our dear Lord as this one of 



30 ORGANIC mnxT the means of 

unity, should not be provided for specially, in the system 
of means and ordinances which He left for the perfect- 
ing of His Church. For let it be remembered that al- 
though there is in the Church even in its state of sepa- 
ration, an instinctive desire and longing for unity, yet the 
instinct is not so powerful as to make sure of its own 
aim, or such that unity can be realized without severe 
spiritual effort. Moreover, it is effected by the opera- 
tion of the Holy Ghost, and, according to all the analogies 
of divine working, this special operation requires ordi- 
nances adapted to the result. 

Have we in Holy Scripture any intimation of any 
system of ordinances appointed for this purpose? Noth- 
ing can be more clear than the words of St. Paul, in 
Ephes. iv. 1-13. Here he urges the obligation to " walk 
worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called." That 
is, we are called as members of one body, in which is to 
be made manifest the purpose of God to gather all things 
together into one head under Christ. This " worthiness " 
consists in the exercise of lowliness, meekness, long suf- 
fering and forbearance, as the correctives of that pride 
and self-seeking which are the provocatives of schism. 
In all this it is easy to see, the apostle anticipates and 
aims to guard against the very sins and infirmities which 
have in fact been ihe originating causes of the existing 
schisms. What but pride, and jealousy, and self-will, 
originated the great schism of the East and the West, 
and all subsequent schisms of which we now see the 
fruits ? Then, after stating the absolute grounds of unity, 



SECURING THE TJKITY OF THE SPIRIT, 31 

in the essential oneness of body, in tlie fact of tlie body 
being dwelt in and inspired by one Spirit, and animated 
by one hope in the one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one 
God and Father of all, he proceeds to declare what was 
the divine ordinance given for the preservation of unity. 
" Wherefore He saith, when He ascended up on high, 
He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men ; and 
He gave some [men] apostles, and some prophets, and 
some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the 
perfecting of the saints to the work of ministry, for the 
edifying of the body of Christ, until we all come into 
the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son 
of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the 
stature of the fulness of Christ." ISTow, from this it is 
very clear that the divine constitution of the ministry 
is the ordinance for the preservation and perfection of 
unity ; and as the constitution of the ministry involves 
the constitution of the Church, we are justified in draw- 
ing the inference that outward organic unity is the di- 
vinely ordained means of attaining the perfect unity of 
the Spirit. 

By organic unity is meant the unity of the whole 
Church throughout the world in one organization. 

The means precedes the end, as the end presupposes 
and implies the means. The Church is the mother of us 
all. Tlie organization is before those who are added to 
it. The Lord added to the Church daily those who were 
saved (cw^ojievovg^ Acts ii. 47). The Lord first con- 
stituted His Church in the twelve, and sent her forth 



e32 OEGANic imrrY the meajsts of 

into the world to bear a witness for His name, and 
when that witness was effectual, those who received it 
were " added to the Chnrch." Their receiving the wit- 
ness and believing the word did not make them members 
of the Church. It was necessary that they should be 
baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by this act 
they became members ; and being members in that one 
body, were bound to preserve the unity of the body by 
avoiding every thing that tended to division. Kow, what 
was it first of all that tended to preserve unity ? Mani- 
festly it was the authority of the Lord in His Apostles. 
" They continued steadfastly in the Apostles' doctrine 
and fellowship, and breaking of bread " — or, commun- 
ion — " and prayers." Here the Apostles, acting collect- 
ively, were the bond of unity to the whole flock. They 
were the depositories of the authority of Christ the Lord. 
This authority, recognized in those who were sent by the 
Lord, bound men together. The Church was not formed 
and kept together merely by voluntary consent. Its 
bond was, subjection to authority. St. Paul declared 
that he was " under the law to Christ." The Church 
was the centre of spiritual liberty, but it was not a lib- 
erty unrestrained by law. Jesus is the Man to whom 
the Father hath given all authority and power. That 
authority He has placed in His Church, which stands as 
His representative on earth, and, as a spiritual mother, 
is charged with authority over her children. The di- 
vinely appointed organ by which that authority shall be 
primarily and ultimately exercised, is the apostolic oifice. 



SECUELSTG THE UNITT OF THE SPIKIT, 33 

It is not for the Churcli to attempt to frame lier own 
constitution for herself — to appoint the organs by which 
this or that function shall be exercised — to modify or 
adapt her constitution to the changes of the times. 
This would be to make the Church not the creation of 
God, but the contrivance of man. The very name of 
the l)ody of Christ would seem enough to contradict any 
such conceit. The Church is left in the world as a wit- 
ness for God, and we know that all that is in the world, 
or that belongs to it, is enmity against God. Therefore 
the Church can take nothing from the world. Her office 
is to mould society, not to be moulded by it. It is to 
present the ideal of perfection drawn from the divine 
word, not to assume the ideas which society may pro- 
pose. 

ITothing can be clearer than that the Lord impressed 
upon the Church the form that He intended it should re- 
ceive. " God hath set some in the Church, first Apos- 
tles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers," &c. " God 
hath set the members, every one of them, in the body as 
it hath pleased Him." " God hath tempered the body 
together, having given more abundant honor to that part 
which lacked, that there may be no schism — or division — 
in the body." ' How, with such words of Holy Scripture 
in view, any one can assert a right on the part of the col- 
lective membership of the Church to modify its constitu- 
tion, is amazing ; the very analogy too of one 'body, is 
against any such assumption. It is a body, and not a 

' 1 Cor. xii. 18, 24, 28, 



34 OEGAOTC UNITY THE MEANS OF 

mere aggregation of individuals, l^o society called a 
body existing by law, or in any other way than as a mere 
voluntary association, can change or modify its organic 
law. That can only be done by the power that gave it 
being. The attempt to change the organization of the 
natural body, can result only in death or deformity. 

]^ow it is this organization, thus divinely formed, 
which is the ordained means of effecting and bringing to 
perfection that unity of the Spirit which is the great ob- 
ject of desire in the Lord's intercessory prayer. It is or- 
dained for this purpose, and is adapted to the end. The 
perfection of unity, as we have seen, involves the bring- 
ing of every thought into subjection to the obedience of 
Christ. The will — the understanding — the affections, 
all must be made to perfectly coincide with the will of 
God, in order that the Holy Ghost may work effectually 
in the members of the Body of Christ, to produce that 
unity which is answerable to the unity of the Father and 
the Son ; and it is by the external unity of the Church 
that this effect is produced. 

1. The unity of the Church is the means for the pro- 
bation of man's will. 

It is by authority, manifesting the will of the supe- 
rior, that the will of man is brought into subjection. God 
has provided for this in the series of subordinations 
which are established in society. The relation of parent 
and child meets us at our entrance into life. The lirst 
waking consciousness recognizes the will of a superior 
by which the child is to be controlled, and in this is laid 



SECUEESTG THE UNITY OF THE SPIKIT. 35 

the foundation of all organized social life. Obedience to 
parents is tlie very essence of filial piety, and in ttie ear- 
lier years before the powers of discernment are developed, 
the spirit of filial obedience is doubtless an atonement 
for many acts in themselves evil which are performed 
under its promptings. The moral judgment may indeed 
be fearfully perverted in such cases, but there is a com- 
pensation in the control which is acquired over the will, 
and in a will early made subject to a lawful authority 
lies the secret of many a case of recovery from an almost 
hopeless degradation. If we were compelled to make a 
choice between a will duly subjected under a perverted 
moral training, and a high culture of the moral senti- 
ments in which the spirit of obedience was wanting, it 
is hardly to be doubted that the former would be chosen. 
It is an anomaly, indeed, to speak of high moral culture 
where the will is not brought into subjection to author- 
ity ; but we know that it is a fact of frequent occurrence, 
that families in which there is the nicest sense of honor, 
the highest disposition to recognize the rights of others, 
and the most refined sensibility to every thing that is 
beautiful, grow up without any adequate idea of subjec- 
tion to authority. Under the mistaken notion that 
every thing must be carried by love, no restraint is ever 
placed upon the wiUs of children ; and while great sensi- 
bility of nature may act as a preservative against vice 
and immorality, yet there is wanting that central ele- 
ment of a well-formed character — a will subdued to the 
recognition of law. The publicans and the harlots, with 



36 OKGANIC UNITY THE MEANS OF 

their perverted social morality, go into the kingdom of 
heaven before the puritanic Pharisee with his self-will in. 
the ascendant. 

To the child, while he is a child, the parent stands in 
God's stead. As intelligence expands, and the perception 
of God's commandments gains place in the mind, the re- 
spect for parental authority will of necessity undergo mod- 
ification, as it is discovered whether that authority is in 
conformity with, or opposed to God's commandments. 
And here oftentimes there will arise questions of personal 
duty, and stragglings with doubt and diflSculty, which 
will require prayer and spiritual counsel to determine. 
But there is a long period before this, during which no 
question can arise in the mind of a child but that of 
obedience, and it is then that the will is to be brought 
into subjection to the divine authority residing in the 
parent. 

As we advance to the age of citizenship we are brought 
under the control of the authority of the State, which is 
another of the forms in which the authority of God is 
brought down to men, and the will of man is kept in sub- 
jection. This is another of the great moral agencies 
which God has established to prepare men in the 
natural sphere for that which must be perfected in the 
spiritual. " That is not first which is spiritual, but that 
which is natural, and afterwards that which is spiritual." 
These arrangements in the natural order for subduing the 
wills of men all look to the great end of God to bring 
every thing in subjection to His Son ; and their considera- 



SECUEING THE UNITY OF THE SPIRIT. 3Y 

tion prepares us to recognize a corresponding arrange- 
ment in the spiritual order, to perfect the subjection of 
man's will to God. 

The Church is the repository of a divine authority. 
As members of the Church, we are not subject to any 
other authority than what is involved in that relation. 
We all stand there individually responsible to the Lord 
for our acts as members of the body. After childhood, 
the parent's rule does not enter here, however much in- 
fluence may and should prevail, and the intrusion of the 
rule of the State is usurpation. It is a relation in which 
there is the most complete exercise of personal responsi- 
bility. That self-will, disturbing the fixed order of 
thiugs, is as liable to assert itself here as anywhere else, and 
even more so, since there are no material restraints upon 
it, is obvious from all history. And how is it to be re- 
strained, and the will of man to be led to a true spiritual 
obedience, but by the recognition of a true divine authori- 
ty in the body ? If the Church is a mere voluntary asso- 
ciation, with a constitution framed by its members and 
subject to their amendment, what is there to bring the 
will of man into subjection ? Men cannot reverence what 
they themselves create. For the sake of policy, they may 
conform to rules which they have had a hand in framing ; 
but in such a case there is wanting any influence what- 
ever to act upon that element of their moral and spiritual 
nature which has the most to do with the spiritual char- 
acter. 

To efiect this result of subduing the will, the consti- 



38 OKGANIC TJNITT THE MEANS OF 

tution of the Church must be at once definite, divine, 
and unalterable except bj divine revelation. There 
must be a line which no self-willed action can pass — a 
fixed order to which every will must conform. "Without 
this, discipline can have no salutary spiritual efiect, and 
it will be well if the exercise of self-will does not extend 
itself, to the choice of what parts of the divine word shall 
be obeyed or disregarded. 

Breaches of unity arising from this as well as from 
every other source, are most likely to spring from the 
spirit of rebellion or self-will on the part of teachers, or 
persons holding prominent situations in the Church, and 
of course it is upon them that the bearing of any ordi- 
nance for the support of unity will be first felt ; but they 
could not effect schism without a following, and the same 
force of authority needs to be recognized by private mem- 
bers as well, in order that the efiect of keeping the will 
in subjection to the obedience of Christ may be secured. 
The idea of the unity of the body, and the necessity of 
preserving it, of the sinfulness of schism, is that which, 
if duly apprehended, will restrain any teacher or ruler in 
the body from setting up his own will against existing 
authority, and will be a guard to all private members 
against readily following the lead of those who cause di- 
visions and contentions. It has indeed been often the 
case during the history of the Church in the ages, that 
ecclesiastical power has been wickedly used for the de- 
struction of those who have asserted only the truth as it is 
in Jesus: and such things may occur again — nay are 



SECUELPTG THE "DNITT OF THE SPIRIT. 39 

occurring at this verj day "before our ejes ; but the part 
of a faithful Christian in such cases is, to put the ecclesi- 
astical power in the wrong by leaving to it the initiative 
in the work of separation. That makes the power the 
schismatic before God, and He will judge it in His own 
way. To go about to overthrow any ecclesiastical au- 
thority lawfully existing, cannot be justifiable, even 
though that authority as actually exercised contains within 
itself many elements of evil. Such an effort counteracts 
the very purpose of God in the unity of the Church — 
the subjection of man's will to authority. Even an 
illegitimate authority exercised in the name of the 
Church should not be readily assailed, for it is better for 
Christian people to be held in control by an authority 
which has for them a divine sanction, than not to recog- 
nize any authority at all. 

The great spiritual result of bringing the whole man 
into subjection to the obedience of Christ, requires an 
objective organization, recognized as divine and unchang- 
able, acting upon the will and restraining every effort at 
separation. In the absence of any material instruments 
to enforce its authority it is truly spiritual, audits action 
is entirely consistent with spiritual freedom, while yet as 
the embodiment of an idea or principle of divine revela- 
tion, as a divine ordinance, its control over the conscience 
is ,complete and adequate to the end proposed. 

2. The objective unity of the Church is a discipline 
for man's intellect. 

The Gospel is represented as " casting down imagina- 



40 ORGAliriC UNITY THE MEANS OF 

tions, or reasonings {Xoyia[j,ovg), and every high thing that 
exalteth itself against the knowlege of God." In these 
words, doubtless, reference is had to the intellectual hin- 
drances and obstructions to a perfect obedience. Every 
one knows that there has been no such fruitful cause of 
schism in the Church as the exercise of intellectual sub- 
tilty. This, even more than resistance to authority, has 
-broken the bond of peace whereby the unity of the Spirit 
was to iDe preserved. All the controversies of the earlier 
centuries were the result of attempts by the subtle 
oriental intellect, either to explain or develop in their 
own way the mysteries of the faith, or to remove the 
difficulties which divine revelation presented to the Unite 
understanding. Arianism with its modern progeny of 
Unitarianism, Universalism, and Pantheism is the fi'uit 
of the refusal of the human intellect to submit itself to 
divine revelation, and of its determination to judge the 
word of God by its own narrow lights. The doctrine of 
transubstantiation is the fruit of scholastic subtil ty, 
attempting to define a spiritual mystery in the forms of 
human speech. 

The very culture and elevation which Christianity 
brings with it, excites the intellectual faculties to that 
degree of activity that they would fain exercise them- 
selves on the very problems that revelation discloses. 
All the questions that exercised the genius of Plato and 
Aristotle, here present themselves, enlarged and extended 
by the new relations into which men are brought by the 
incarnation. "By faith we understand that the ages 



SECUEING THE UNITY OF THE SPIRIT. 41 

were constituted by the word of God." Here is a first 
trutli, in receiving wliicli the Christian philosopher is far 
in advance of Aristotle. Here is the certain knowledge 
of a personal deity — the Maker and Source of all things. 
But this being admitted, it is easy to bring faith to 
an arrest, and attempt to bring every farther truth sug- 
gested under the survey of the intellect. God is per- 
sonal — ^but the words of Holy Scripture lead also to a 
Trinity. How does this Trinity exist ? Is this a Trinity 
of persons, or only a Trinity of faculties, or of modes 
of manifestation? What constitutes the Trinity, and 
what are the relations of the members of it to one 
another ? God has manifested himself in human form. 
From this flow questions of the nature of the incarnation 
— whether the Son of God who appeared in man's nature 
was really a divine person of the same substance with His 
Father, or a creature — whether the nature He took was 
really united with the divine, or a mere form which He 
laid aside after His Resurrection — and so on, for we do 
not propose to give a catalogue of heresies. 

The very subjects of revelation, therefore, are those 
which more than any others excite intellectual activity, 
and this fact creates the necessity for some agency, which 
shall hold the self-asserting intellect in check. The 
Christian is not perfect until his intellect as well as his 
will is entirely subject to God and to His Christ. He 
must be content to know every thing by faith — by com- 
munication from God through His revealed Avord. He 
must be willing that even the natural reason which God 



42 OEGANIC tnsriTT THE MEANS OF 

lias given him, and whicli in the natural sphere is the true 
organ of knowing, should stand aside and take its light 
and its direction from the word of God. Every reason- 
ing (XoyiGfiog), every high theory or philosophy, which ex- 
alteth itself against the knowledge of God, must be cast 
down and made subject to God's word as revealed 
through his Son. If theories cannot be made to harmonize 
with revelation, theories must give way. Until this is 
done in the body, the unity of the spirit cannot be per- 
fect ; we do not come into the unity of the faith and of 
the knowledge of the Son of God. 

!N^ow for the attainment of this result the objective 
unity of the Church is the only adequate means. 

The Holy Scriptures are not written in a dogmatic 
form. Their structure seems designed to test the faith 
and docility of those to whom they are given. That by 
themselves they cannot determine doctrine, is manifest 
from the fact that they are ajjpealed to by every sect 
that professes to be Christian at all. This is no reason for 
withholding them from universal perusal however, since 
the Church duly constituted is equal to the counteraction 
of false teachings, and beyond this there must be room 
for the exercise of individual responsibility in their 
use. Different interpretations are the work of diflerent 
self-asserting minds, which have force enough to draw 
disciples after them. The only corrective of such eccen- 
tricities is the sense of obligation to preserve the unity 
of the Spirit. The Church received from the Apostles 
the form of doctrine into which all her teachings were to 



SECUEING THE UNITY OE THE SPERIT. 43 

be cast. Every teacher is bound to teacb in accordance 
with the analogy of the faith, and to interpret Holy 
Scripture in harmony with the general sense of Christen- 
dom. 1^0 one acting upon such a principle, and deeply 
impressed with the sin of causing a schism in the body, 
would ever have originated novel intepretations, much 
less have attempted to impose them as additions to the 
faith. Had Arius recognized the importance of preserv- 
ing unity, he never would have outraged the convictions 
of the greater part of the Church by the avowal of his 
philosophy. Take the case of the separation of the East 
and West — the pretext for which was the doctrine of the 
double Procession. Whatever might be true, and however 
the Western Church might have received it, a proper re- 
gard for unity would have restrained the Koman Patriarch 
from attempting to enforce this faith upon the whole 
Churcb, beyond wbat the East had acknowledged in her 
creed. In the unfolding of Christian doctrine there 
must of necessity be a difference in the progressive de- 
velopment of different minds and different regions ; 
and the only test that can be applied in such cases, is 
the integrity of the faith which is common to the whole 
Church. 

The true effect of a regard for unity would be, on 
the part of teachers, to restrain the ambition and self- 
conceit which leads them to put forth new theories, and 
on the part of the taught, to lead them to weigh well 
the teachings which may result in such a disaster as a 
schism. Such self-restraint does not of necessity involve 



44 OKGANIC UNITY THE MEANS OF 

any intellectual bondage. It only tends to promote 
carefulness in the nnfolding of what may be regarded by 
the teacher as a more advanced view of truths which the 
Church approves, and a willingness to subject one's self 
to the oversight and correction of whatever authority 
there may be for pronouncing upon such questions. To 
such supervision and review no one who knows his own 
insufficiency will object.* 

The truth of the Gospel has a germinative power. 
Its province is to grow, its nature is to develop. The 
well-instructed scribe brings out of his treasure, things 
new as well as old ; but the new must not be at vari- 
ance with the old. Growth is essential to the attain- 
ment of unity, " that we be no more children tossed to 
and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, 
but speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things 
unto Him who is the head, even Christ " (Ephes. iv. 14, 
15). But it is manifest that all intellectual activity is 
not a sign of spiritual growth. The time was foretold 
when " men would not endure sound doctrine, but ac- 
cording to their own lusts should heap to themselves 
teachers having itching ears ; and they shall turn away 
their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables " 

* I am treating the question here in the abstract, and upon the hypoth- 
esis that the Church is perfectly constituted according to the divine will. 
I do not mean to deny that the state of Christendom has been such as to 
make it necessary for men to speak against what has been the current 
opinions of the time. But even reformers, in raising their voice against 
prevalent corruptions and perversions of doctrine, have always appealed 
to the general sense of Christendom in its purer days, in justification of 
interpretations which the Church of their own day condemned them for. 



SEOUEmG THE UNITY OF THE SPmiT. 45 

(2 Tim. iv. 3, 4). Any exercise of the intellect on spir- 
itual subjects wMch is not in the direction of faith, is 
not spiritual progress, but a hindrance rather. Kow, 
what is there so well calculated to restrain such an ex- 
ercise of the fleshly intellect, as a conviction of the duty 
of avoiding any thing that may disturb the unity of the 
Church? 

As a matter of fact, the doctrine that has obtained 
the universal assent of Christendom, is that which was 
declared by the entire Church while the whole Church 
was in a condition to utter her voice in ecumenical 
councils. Other questions have since arisen, which, for 
the want of any means of obtaining the universal ex- 
pression of Christendom, still remain open. Schisms 
from schisms have resulted, of which the most obvious 
effect is to illustrate the necessity of a deeper conviction 
of the obligation of unity. The spirit of unity may ex- 
ist even in the midst of schism, and it will be found 
wherever there is a conviction that any further division 
is to be avoided. Members of a sect may be so impressed 
with the duty of maintaining unity, as to be led thereby 
to restrain themselves from any indulgence of self-will 
that would renew division. How much more powerful 
must this conviction prove when it is felt, that unity is 
the result of a divine organization — that the Church is 
the repository of the authority of Christ Himselt^ — that 
she holds the faith once for all delivered to the saints, 
and has the Lord's promise that if she continues to do 
His will, she shall be led into all truth. 



4:6 OEGANIC UNITY THE MEANS OF 

The difference is very wide between the servile and 
literal submission to a supposed infallible personal 
authority, and a conscientious carefulness to avoid what- 
ever may come into collision with the received and rec- 
ognized faith of the whole Church. The latter will be 
an influence no less powerful than the former to restrain 
the fleshly mind, and to bring the intellect into sub- 
jection. It will as completely repress all disposition to 
put forth theories and conceits, and thus tend to strengthen 
that unity of the spirit in which the perfection of the 
Church shall be attained. Thus it is that the objective 
unity of the Church is a means of bringing the intel- 
lect into subjection to the obedience of Christ. 

But it is not only by authority that the Church is to 
act upon the intellect, and satisfy and perfect its devel- 
opment. The truth which is revealed by the Gospel 
must of necessity assume difierent aspects to different 
minds. The human and divine elements of Christianity 
— its objective and subjective sides — may easily array 
different parties in opposition to each other. Each is as 
sure of the truth as clear consciousness can make it, but 
each, while seeing its own side, has only half the truth, 
and can be only partially developed. It requires some- 
thing more than philosophical argument or theological 
debate, to settle such questions in a way to satisfy the 
wants of minds that are confident of what they do hold 
and who see only antagonism in the other side. Tlie 
intellect that is thus occupied by a half-truth, is imper- 
fectly developed, and the imperfection must extend to 



SECDIONG THE UNITY OF THE SPIEIT. 47 

every other faculty of the soul. Half-truths are the 
very life-blood of sectarianism ; they are the most pro- 
lific source of controversies. The divided Church di- 
vides the truth, and one part is held by one section and 
another by another. Perfect development can only re- 
sult from perfect truth, and hence the necessity that the 
Church shall be so constituted, that the whole truth as 
it is in Jesus shall be taught everywhere. And this can- 
not be done short of a universal organization, which 
shall harmonize every intellectual tendency, and satisfy 
every intellectual want — which shall furnish adequate 
nutriment for the analytic intellect of the East, and the 
synthetic tendency of the West — which shall alike meet 
the wants of the imaginative mind of the South, and the 
colder and less luxuriant temperament of the Korth. 
The opposition between the different tendencies can only 
then be seen to be not antagonism when each is made 
to supplement the other, and it is only under such con- 
ditions that the charity that rejoiceth in the truth can 
be completely satisfied. Earnest men will feel that it is 
right for them to contend against error, and so long as 
an opposite tendency appears to be an error will they 
fight against it. It is the ofSce of a truly Catholic or- 
ganization of the Church to bring opposite (not oppos- 
ing) tendencies into harmony, and thus present the truth 
as one, that the intellect may be developed in its fulness, 
and all its various tendencies be met. 

3. The necessity for some agency ordained of God 
to act upon the affections to bring them into subjection 



48 ORGANIC UNITY THE MEANS OF 

to the will of God, is equally manifest. The heart is 
not to be controlled by abstractions. Something real 
and appreliensible by the senses is essential to shape the 
affections. The whole Gospel system, the manifestation 
of God in flesh, is in fact a divine arrangement for bring- 
ing the truth down to meet the finite and intelligible 
wants of men. The Church is just the embodiment of 
the system. Sacraments are ordained for bringing spir- 
itual relations into the conditions of time and space. 
Christ Himself is indeed the true and chief object of the 
love and devotion of every one who believes on Him. 
Any love of the Church which supersedes the love of 
Christ is mere sectarianism, however pure the Church so 
loved may be.* But every one knows that the love of 
Christ manifests itself in the love of the brethren, in 
love for the mystical body of Him who is the personal 
object of devotion. The paraphrase of the 136th 
Psalm, which is such a favorite with all religious denom- 
inations — 

" I love Thy kingdom, Lord," &c., 

is a form in which love to Christ is expressed more tan- 
gibly than by mere abstract declarations ; and hence it is 
that these words, as well as the words of the Holy Ghost 

* It is a remark of Coleridge, that he who begins by loving the Church 
more than he loves Christ, will go on to loving his own sect more than he 
loves the Church, and end with loving himself more than all. I quote 
from memory, but this is the substance, if not the exact form, of the utter- 
ance. It may be possible to love the Bride more than the Bride- 
groom, and even to the exclusion of the Bridegroom. 



SECURING THE UNITY OF THE SPIRIT. 49 

in the original, thrill through the soul of every devout 
Christian, with an energy that has its parallel only in the 
warmest natural affection or the most devoted patriotism. 
Such love is pure unselfishness. Love for the Church, 
or for what represents the Church, is one of the first dic- 
tates of a pure and elevated piety. " Even as Christ 
loved the Church, and gave Himself for it," so does love 
for the body of Christ possess the soul of every one in 
whom the love of Christ becomes controlling. 

iNTow, it is manifest that, in order that this love may 
be pure, and continue so, its object must be real. It 
will be deep just as the body of Christ is discerned — 
just as the true relations between Christ and His Church 
are apprehended. This can only be when the whole 
company of the Baptized is seen as one. Under the in- 
fluence or control of a sect, the sentiment of love for the 
Church is sure to become a narrow and selfish feeling — 
to degenerate into sectarian and partisan zeal — to want 
that pure and unselfish devotion which answers to the 
love of Christ for His Church. 'No sect can call forth 
the reverence and affection which should be inspired by 
the Bride of Christ — for the Bride is one, not made up 
of many. Only a largeness Qf charity, which compre- 
hends all the baptized as brethren, which weeps over 
errors and faults, which avoids bitterness and strife, 
which longs for the removal of every hindrance to unity, 
which seeketh not its own, which rejoiceth not in in- 
iquity but rejoiceth in the truth wherever seen, which 
beareth all things, belie veth all things, hopeth all things, 



50 OEGANIO UNITY THE MEANS OF 

enduretli all tilings — only sucli a love, extended to all 
the Baptized throughout the world, can answer to the 
true character of love for the Bride of Christ. 

Such a love, sectarianism cannot beget; and if it 
springs up, is very apt to prevent and quench. Every 
sect has its existence based upon some narrow and ex- 
clusive principle ; either some one or more dogmas held 
to the exclusion of all others, or some negation of a 
truth held in whole or in part by other portions of the 
baptized. The less there is of negation the greater the 
room for charity, and the less the hindrance to unity ; 
but it is inevitable that, under the dominion of secta- 
rianism, what should be the love for the Bride of Christ, 
degenerates into zeal for a sect, or else subsides alto- 
gether. 

Since, then, an outward or objective organization is 
necessary to concentrate and form the spiritual affections 
which are involved in the attainment of Christian perfec- 
tion and the perfect unity of the Spirit, it would seem that 
nothing less than a universal organization, embracing all 
the baptized, would answer the purpose. Even national 
Churches, organized on a principle of national independ- 
ency, cannot develop the sentiment in its completeness : 
" In Christ Jesus there is neither Greek nor Jew, barba- 
rian nor Scythian, bond nor free." National relations 
are of the flesh, and originate in man's fallen condition, 
and involve duties and attachments which are indhrances 
rather than otherwise to the spiritual development. 

The time of the kingdom has not yet come, and un- 



SECUKING THE UNITY OF THE SPERIT. 51 

til then nationalities must be kept in abeyance where 
spiritual relations are concerned. Anglicanism must in- 
volve more or less of English peculiarities, and the 
same is true with every other national Church organi- 
zation, which stands upon its nationality. 

The great results that the outward organization of 
the Church is designed of God to effect can only be se- 
cured by a truly CathoKc constitution, which shall em- 
brace under a universal government- — what the form of 
that government should be, will be a subject of consider- 
ation hereafter — all those throughout the world who are 
members of the Body of Christ.* Under such conditions 
alone does the mind rise above the temporal and secular 
relations which spring from this present life. Then only 
do we realize that we are called to sit with Christ in the 
heavenlies, and that our citizenship is in heaven — that 
the Jerusalem which is above is the common mother of 
us all. Some such idea as this is implied in all the high- 
er forms of spiritual sentiment, even in connection with 
sectarian organizations, but the tendency of sectarianism 
to crush and repress'" such sentiments is fearful and irre- 
sistible. . 

The effort is sometimes made to take a position of 
assumed superiority to all Church bonds — to cast off all 
sectarian or ecclesiastical influences ; and such efforts are 

* The authority of Christ cannot be felt TPhen regarded as divided up 
among a number of coordinate yet independent sovereignties. No author- 
ity speaking and acting through a part and not being the expression of the 
whole can have absolute weight, or bind the conscience. 



52 ORGANIC UNITY THE MEANS OF 

perhaps so far successful in individual cases, as to free 
individuals from the narrowness and selfishness which 
devotion to a sect inspires, and promote largeness and 
liberality towards others ; but in such cases there is of 
necessity a failure in the subjection of the will and the 
intellect to the divine authority, and a general defect in 
character follows. Any organized attempts to cast oti' 
all ecclesiastical restraints, even the lowest and most 
nominal, as those of Congregationalism, uniformly result 
either in outright infidelity, or a more narrow and intense 
Sectarianism. 

I have thus endeavored to show the necessity for an 
outward organization of the Church which shall be co- 
extensive with Christendom, for bringing the minds of 
baptized men into that state which shall fulfil the condi- 
tions of our Lord's Intercessory Prayer. Such an organ- 
ization is necessary, to act upon those several powers and 
faculties in the man, by which his spiritual condition is 
determined. It must be used, unless we assume that all 
God's acts among men are to be direct upon his con- 
sciousness instead of by means of ordinances, which is 
contrary to all analogy and all revelation. Under these 
three heads of will, intellect, and afiections, the whole 
man is comprehended, and by them the whole spiritual 
character is formed. 

I am guite aware that, in assuming the existence of an 
outward unity as antecedent to the perfect unity of the 
Spirit, I am going counter to the prevalent opinion of 
Protestants, who generally will not allow that the out- 



SECUEING THE UNITT OF THE SPIRIT. 53 

ward organization is any thing but the result of the ag- 
gregation of those who believe, and consequently cannot 
regard it as the repository of authority. This is, I am 
persuaded, just the weak point of Protestantism — the 
point where it fails to apprehend the true relations of the 
Baptized to Christ. I repeat, therefore, the remark made 
at the beginning of this chapter — that the organization 
is before those who are added to it. The Clmrch is in 
its constitution the IS'ew Jerusalem, and this the Apostle 
declares is " the mother of us all " (Gal. iv. 26). On Pen- 
tecost, by the descent of the Holy Ghost, the Lord estab- 
lished a spiritual polity — i. e., a polity of which the life 
and power is spiritual in distinction from natural, and 
every Christian has his standing as a baptized person 
derived from that polity. The preaching of the Word, 
by which we have been enlightened and converted, is a 
function of that body. The baptism whereby we have 
been grafted in, is another function. And so with all 
the nurture and discipline whereby the spiritual life has 
been strengthened. The offices of ministry, whether of 
the word or sacraments which men exercise, are not 
merely the works of individuals, but works of men as 
members of a body, and so are workings of the body. 
Although we may, without any fault of our own, have 
been separated from the mass of the baptized among 
whom a formal organization of the Church has had con- 
tinuity, whatever grace or blessing we have received has 
been by virtue of the endowment which the Lord gave 
to His Church at Pentecost, which thus became the mother 



54 OKGANIC UNITY THE MEANS, ETC. 

of all who are bom to God. The recognition of this 
truth must precede any progress toward a recovered or- 
ganic unity, by which the unity of Spirit can be restored 
and perfected. 

The object at present to be hoped for is not so much 
the actual reunion of the several sects and. portions of 
Christendom under one federative organization, as the 
constitution of a body which shall involve every principle 
of unity, by means of which the unity of the Spirit may 
be attained. This would not be efi'ected by any recovery 
of intercommunion between national Churches, as for in- 
stance the Greek and Anglican, nor by any federative 
union of sects. No such union would act upon the spir- 
its of members of the body in such a way as to bring 
ever}' thought into subjection to the obedience of Christ. 
The hand of man in bringing it about would be too pal- 
pable to command the reverence and submission and 
love, which a new divine creation would call forth. The 
truce might be kept for a season, the treaty might be ob- 
served scrupulously, but the absence of the supernatural 
from it would leave it as a memory on every mind, that it 
was a human treaty, after all. 

God alone, by supernatural agency, can restore the 
unity of the Body of Clu-ist. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE PRESENT STATE OF CHRISTENDOM CONSEDEEED WITH 
EEFEKENCE TO UNITY. 

The great schism hetwcen the East and West — The schism caused by the Protestant 
Eeformation — This resulted not in dividing the Western Church into two great 
communities, but into a variety of National Churches, without any common head- 
ship — Subordinate divisions — Statement of the present condition of entire Chris- 
tendom — The Church, in God's sight, embraces all the baptized — ITie question of 
lay baptism — The Church not now appearing as one whole, but existing in frag- 
ments — Principles upon which Unity may bo recovered. 

Before proceeding to consider tlie metliod of realiz- 
ing tlie principles stated in the foregoing chapters, it will 
be well to dwell upon the present condition of Christen- 
dom, as related to the question we have in hand. This, 
it will be admitted, is widely different from what it was 
in the first, or even in the sixth, century. Schisms and 
heresies there were, but there was no settled division of 
the whole Christian community throughout the world, 
into distinct and opposing parties. With insignificant 
exceptions, the whole company of the baptized through- 
out the world constituted one community. True it is 
that there were disruptive causes at work in the midst 
of the Church — there were rivalries and animosities — 
there was strife and contention enough to drive into 



56 THE PRESENT STATE OF CHKISTENDOM 

fragments any society which was not held together by 
some unseen power. Tlie real and perfect bonds of unity 
were lost when the apostles ceased to be alive and rule 
the Church ; but still there was enough of the conviction 
of the essential oneness of the body, and of the sin and evil 
of separation, to retain the various parts of the body 
together and prevent a permanent and irremediable 
schism. 

The rivalry between the Eastern and Western Em- 
pires extended also to the Patriarchs of Rome and Con- 
stantinople, and thus the spirit of separation was encour- 
aged, and nothing could be anticipated from the mutual 
curses and excommunications of the respective patriarchs, 
which were for several hundred years passing to and fro, 
but ultimate separation. The heart and spirit of the 
two communities had been divided and alienated upon 
grounds both of faith and of precedency. The last and 
crowning act which consummated the schism was the 
placing upon the altar of St. Sophia, by Leo IX., of the 
written decree of excommunication of the Eastern Patri- 
arch, when his legates shook off the dust from their feet 
and departed forever. This was in the year A. D. 1054. 
The rupture of the Church was now complete. Other 
questions had separated men, and even communities, 
from the Church ; but now schism divided the Church 
itself, and rent it in two. 

The great schism of the eleventh century is tlie parent 
of all other schisms. The body being rent in twain, it is 



CONSIDEBED WITH KEFERENCE TO UNITY. 57 

impossible to enforce the obligation to keep the unity 
of the Spirit. 

The "Western Church being separated from the East- 
ern, proceeded more and more, with the aid of the secu- 
lar power, to consolidate her own organization, and was 
in the main successful. For four and a half centuries 
no disturbance of the organic unity of the Church in 
"Western Europe occurred sufficient to effect a division. 
There were schisms within it, of which the long-standing 
schism of the Papacy in the fourteenth century is the 
most signal example; and this, no doubt, contributed 
very materially to prepare the way for the great Protes- 
tant schism. There were communities which dissented 
from some of the teachings of the Church, such as the 
"Waldenses, and others like the followers of Huss in Bo- 
hemia, who, from demanding practical reforms in the 
Church, which were refused, were at length driven out 
of the Church and formed into separate associations ; 
but until the times of Luther and the Protestant Eefor- 
mation, there was no community of Christian people who 
separated themselves from the organic Poman Church 
by casting off the authority of its head. But in the six- 
teenth century this authority was more effectively ques- 
tioned, and further schism occurred. The Protestants 
of the Continent denied the authority of the Papacy, and 
were cast off by it. The Church that was in England, 
acting under the lead of the English king, also separated 
herself from the organic unity of Rome. The Church 
in Scotland followed the course of the Continental Prot- 



68 THE PRESENT STATE OF CHKISTENDOM 

estants. The Protestant schism was not, like the great 
schism of East and West, a division of the Western 
Chnrch into two great parts, each having an organic 
nnity of its own. While Rome retained her nnitj, the 
several Protestant nationalities were divided, each into a 
separate organization, having no common bond except 
their opposition to Rome. Each national Church was 
brought under the control of its national government. 
They were not organized alike. They had no common 
creed, no uniformity of worship, and were, in fact, so 
many separate communities, each having through its 
secular government a unity in itself, but having no 
unity together. The English Church retained the Epis- 
copal organization, with the succession of the priesthood, 
liturgical services, and the sacramental doctrine. In 
Scotland, the Church was constituted on a Presbyterian 
basis. In Germany, France, Switzerland, Holland, etc., 
substantially the same organization was adopted, with 
such variations of doctrine and worship as the Calvinistic 
and Lutheran systems present. In thelSTorthern nations 
the form of Episcopacy, though without the succession 
of priesthood, was established in connection with Lu- 
theran doctrine. 

The principle of objective unity being lost, when the 
power of the civil authority did not interpose there was 
nothing to hinder further subdivision, and so sects upon 
sects and schisms from schisms arose and multiplied. In 
Great Britain and in this country, the freedom from po- 
litical restraint has favored the exercise of every form of 



CONSIDEBED WITH KEFEEENOE TO UNITY. 59 

belief and no belief, and consequently bere we see as no- 
where else the development of tbe sectarian principle, 
and (in this land at least) the unqnalified assertion that 
sectarianism is a good thing. 

It is no part of my present undertaking to decide 
where the blame of this state of things belongs. I have 
now only to state it in such fonn that we may, as from 
a height, look down upon the Christian world and be- 
hold its condition. 

We have, then — 

First. The Eastern Church, with its dependencies, in- 
cluding the Russian Church, which, in the main, consti- 
tute one community, not to speak of lesser communities 
in the East, of which our knowledge is but limited but 
which are substantially identified with it. 

Secondly. The great Roman Catholic Communion, 
extending to all parts of the world, and bound into one, 
by the recognition of the authority of the Pope. 

Thirdly. The great mass of Protestants, consisting of 
numerous communities, bound together by no common 
bond of unity, and some of them not recognizing the 
others as having any title to the Christian name.* 

These several classes compose the company of the 
Baptized, or the visible Church militant, here upon 
earth. 

Of all these classes, the Roman Catholic Church 

* It is possible that these three divisions of Christendom constitute the 
" three parts " upon which the judgments announced in Kev. ch. viii. are 
poured out. 



60 THE PRESENT STATE OF CHRISTENDOM 

alone claims to be exclusively the Catholic Church, on 
the assumed ground that the Bishop of Rome, as the suc- 
cessor of St. Peter, is the divinely ordained head of the 
Church on earth. High Anglicans attempt to limit the 
comprehension of the Church to those who are in imme- 
diate relations to a pastorship of Apostolic Succession. 
The Baptists will allow none to be of the Church who 
are not immersed, but all other sects and parties are 
willing that all whom they can recognize as evangelical^ 
which excludes Romanists and high Anglicans, should be 
regarded as comprehended within the Church. The 
Roman Catholics are the only party who maintain any 
principle of unity. The high Anglican is also a stickler 
for national independency, which is as fatal to Catholic 
unity as Congregationalism, while the very life of all 
other divisions is the asserted right of separation. Seen 
from a position in the heavenlies, the great community 
of the baptized must seem like a vast army divided into 
many parts, and, while not wholly regardless of their 
common enemy, yet much weakened and rendered pow- 
erless by contention among themselves. We cannot 
suppose that our Lord regards them otherwise than as 
one aggregate body. Among some portions of the 
whole His ordinances are preserved with a greater degree 
of perfection, and with others less, while some have so 
far departed from His ways as to have left scarce a shad- 
ow of His institutions among them, and to hardly have 
any title to be accounted His followers, and others 
have engrafted upon His ordinances a variety of human 



CONSIDERED WITH KEFEKENCE TO UlSriTT. 61 

devices, which hinder and obscure what is divine. One 
portion has assumed a principle for unity which is a 
usurpation of His own prerogatives, and has been the 
fruitful cause of the present condition of the whole body ; 
while others have so far lost sight of the true end of their 
calling as to repudiate all thoughts of unity. 

Something may require to be said in defence of the 
principles of comprehension here assumed — viz., that the 
visible Church consists of all the Baptized. The Roman 
Catholic Church claims to be the possessor of the sole 
legitimate ecclesiastical authority, but even Romanists 
will allow that Protestants are by baptism their breth- 
ren, and in some way members of the same mystical 
body. The claim, therefore, for the possession of an ex- 
clusive divine authority does not preclude the admission 
that those who do not recognize that authority are mem- 
bers of the visible Church. The objection to our prin- 
ciple of comprehension comes most positively from high 
Anglicans and Episcopalians, who are much given to 
speaking of themselves as exclusively "the Cliurch," 
ISTow, in England, where the English Church has an un- 
doubted authority and an original mission, the claim to 
recoD-nition of the establishment as The Church has a 
very strong basis, both as against dissenters, who have 
separated themselves from it, and the Church of Rome, 
which has intruded upon its field. In this land, the prin- 
ciples of Anglicanism, which are those of national inde- 
pendency (and even of diocesan independency), leave it 
no more claim than it can establish in the convictions 



62 THE PRESENT STATE OF CHKISTENDOM 

of men. The Protestant Episcopal Cliurcli stands side 
bj side with the Koman Catholic Church (not to speak 
here of other bodies), which has at least an equal right 
with itself to the title of the Church ; for high church- 
men will not deny that it has all the essentials of a 
Church. ]^ow, the Roman Catholic Church has as good 
a right to extend itself as the English Church, and its 
orders and authority may be regarded, as far as the let- 
ter goes, of equal force. The Episcopal Church acquired 
no national standing under the colonial regime which 
would warrant it to claim the title of the Ameri- 
can Church, at the occurrence of the Revolution. There 
were only a few scattered congregations of Episcopalians 
in the land, which were under the oversight of the 
Bishop of London ; but no bishop had been sent here, 
and there was no ecclesiastical constitution, such as now 
prevails in the British colonies. The attempt, therefore, 
to assert for this body a standing in the reh'gious world an- 
swerable to that of the established Church in England, is 
simply absurd. In some minds the talk of high cliurch- 
men about their Church as " The Church," provokes irrita- 
tion ; it may more properly be passed by with a smile. 
A certain class of high churchmen have undertaken to 
affirm that no baptism is to be regarded as real or valid, 
except what is administered by ministers who have re- 
ceived episcopal ordination ; that is, that for the last 
three centuries there has been no baptism among Prot- 
estants outside of the Church of England and its off- 
spring, and that consequently, the great mass of these 



CONSIDEEED WITH EEFEKENCE TO TUSTITY. 63 

communities are not to be regarded as belonging to the 
Church. This theory has indeed been sometimes carried 
to a most absurd application. This would be to admit 
that the energy of the Divine life would be just as effec- 
tive outside the Church as within it. It cannot be de- 
nied that there have been at least as many and as abun- 
dant tokens of the operation of a supernatural grace 
among those outside of episcopacy as within it. It is a 
folly amounting to infatuation, to affirm that all the in- 
tellectual and moral manifestations produced among the 
Puritans and other dissenters in England, and among the 
Protestants in this country and on the Continent of Eu- 
rope, are the results of mere nature, and not to be re- 
garded in any way as fruits of the Spirit. Faith is the 
gift of God — the work of the Holy Ghost. When we 
see on a large scale evidences of an inwrought, effective 
faith — when we see whole communities under its power 
holding to the deepest mysteries of the Christian faith, 
such as the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Atonement, 
the work of the Holy Spirit — when we see manifest fruits 
of godliness, not only in individuals, but in the consti- 
tution of society, with whatever shortcomings and defects 
in matters ecclesiastical and ritual, and withal can give 
a very rational and consistent account of the rise, growth, 
and establishment of what may be anomalies in these 
systems — when such a state of facts presents itself to us, 
it is surely undervaluing by comparison the advantages 
and grace of Christian ordinances to say, that all these 
fruits have been attained in unbaptized communities. 



64 THEPEESENT STATE OF CHEISTEisTOOM 

It has certainly never, in the most palmy days of eccle- 
siastical authority, been maintained that baptism was 
void in its effect for want of regularity in the ordination 
of the administrator. l!^ay, the sanction expressly given 
to baptism by lay persons both male and female in cir- 
cumstances of necessity, and the steady refusal of the 
Church to treat as void baptism administered by those 
in heresy or schism, provided the right matter and form 
were used, establishes the principle, so far as the action 
of the Church can do so, that baptism is not rendered 
void by want of regularity of ordination. Just such a 
state of facts as that occasioned by the Protestant Refor- 
mation had not indeed existed in the previous centuries. 
The schisms of the Donatists and Novatians, and otlier 
of the earlier sects, did not involve the rejection of the 
Episcopate, neither, on the other hand, was the rejection 
of the Episcopate regarded by the English Church as 
separating the reformed bodies of the Continent from the 
body of Christ, or denying the validity of baptism as ad- 
ministered among them. 

The acts of separation from the communion of the 
Western Church having its head and centre at Rome, at 
the time of the Reformation, were not the acts of individ- 
ual members. They were the acts of entu-e communities. 
The Church of an entire nation and people, acting as one, 
threw off that authority, and by so doing did not lose its 
corporate character. This was as true on the Continent 
as of the Church of England. The adoption on the Con- 
tinent of an ecclesiastical system without the element of 



CONSIDEKED WITH KEFERENCE TO UNITT. 65 

Episcopacy was a distinct act. l!Tow, where has there 
existed any authority to say that these bodies of Chris- 
tian people, these national Churches, by this rejection of 
Episcopacy, separated themselves from the body of 
Christ ? The authority of Eome has declared all Prot- 
estant bodies both heretical and schismatical, because of 
their rejection of the Papal authority and dogmas ; but 
in this it places all Protestants, whether Episcopal or not, 
on a footing, and includes the Church of England with 
all the rest. The Church of England has never assumed 
to say that the want of Episcopacy separated any com- 
munity from the body of Christ ; and it is a mere exer- 
cise of private opinion in its worst form, for Episcopa- 
lians — or high Anglicans if they prefer the name — to as- 
sume to say that non-Episcopalians are not of the 
Church. 

If these Protestant communities were not by the sep- 
aration from Kome cut off from the body of Christ, and 
have not since then cut themselves off by rejecting the 
Christian faith, they still must have within them a meas- 
ure of the supernatural grace which is inseparable from 
the body of Christ ; and it is certainly not unreasonable 
to assume, that the principles which had been recognized 
as applicable to the case of baptism by unordained per- 
sons, may be admitted here, to establish the continuity of 
these bodies as members of the body of -Christ, and their 
right to be regarded as important fragments of the one 
broken and divided body. 

These remarks would not have their full application 



6(y THE PRESENT STATE OF CHEISTENDOM 

to the various sects which have sprung up by individual 
separations from the original reformed Churches, which 
is the case of most of the sects in this land, inasmuch as 
these had no original corporate relations to the undivided 
Church. But as these sects have never been cut off by any 
competent authority, they are still to be regarded as com- 
ponent parts of the Church, while by the ordinance of 
baptism the power of continuity is retained. 

The conclusion that we must reach upon such a re- 
view of the state of Christendom, is simply this : that the 
organization of the Chm*ch as one whole is dissolved — 
that the Church now exists in fragments, some having 
retained a greater and some a less portion of the truth 
which the Lord gave to her, and of the ordinances which 
He established for her perfecting. In a perfect condition, 
the Church, whole in every part, would give a perfect 
witness for all truth and every divine ordinance. But 
in her actual condition, the truth is divided among the 
several parts. The Koman Catholic Church has not 
ceased to witness for unity — for authority — for order — 
and to set forth, in however perverted a form, doctrines 
and usages which are essential constituents of the perfect 
truth as it is in Jesus. But she has closed the Bible, and 
overlaid divine truth and order with doctrines and com- 
mandments of men, and usurpations of authority. Prot- 
estants, on the other hand, have with one voice con- 
tended for the exercise of the individual conscience and 
the private judgment, for the open Bible and the reason- 
able service, while in doing so they have erred to the ex- 



CONSIDEKED WITH KEFEEENCE TO UNITr. 67 

tent of throwing off all authority, and disregarding all 
order, and abusing the right of private judgment into 
rationalism and unbelief. 

Among Protestants, again, the Church of England 
has continued to witness to the reality of a divine minis- 
try in the Church, to order in worship, to the reality of 
sacraments, while, for the greater part of her separate ex- 
istence, she has practically failed to recognize the reality 
of a divine supernatural life in ordinances ; and this has 
been the cause of the separation from her of various 
sects, who have sought in separation to attain what she 
failed to supply. 

A similar division of the truth among the different 
sects is seen in the case of the Calvinistic and Methodist 
Churches, the one so grasping the divine side of the mys- 
tery of united divine and human agency in salvation, 
and the other the human side, as to give a half truth to 
each, and leave space for constant misunderstanding and 
confusion. 

The view we have taken of the condition of the uni- 
versal Church, and the relation of the parts to the whole, 
suggests the principles upon which unity may be recov- 
ered : 

1. The unity we are to contemplate and hope for, 
must comprehend all parts of the scattered and broken 
body. It must be a unity which shall include Koman 
Catholics, and Greeks, and Armenians, and Protestants — 
which must extend over the whole of Christendom. It 
is not merely the reconciling of Protestant sects one with 



68 THE PEESENT STATE OF CHRISTENDOM 

another, for the purpose of a stronger and more effectual 
assault against Rome, nor an intercommunion of the 
Greek and Episcopal Churches for the same pui-pose. 
This would only intensify the sect spirit, transferring it 
from the narrower to the wider field, and would not tend 
in any degree to illustrate to the world the unity of the 
Father and the Son. 

2. It is manifest that no unity by the union of sects, 
or of national Churches, is possible. 

If all other bodies of Christians could by some ar- 
rangements and concessions be united into a confedera- 
tion, still the Eoman Catholic Church would by its first 
principles be excluded. ISTo one will be so enthusiastic 
as to suppose that that communion will ever surrender 
its claims to universal supremacy. ITeither is the East- 
ern Church at all likely to abandon the ground it has 
held for so many centuries, and admit the supremacy of 
Rome. It is hardly necessary to say, that it is equally 
impossible for the Protestant sects to surrender their 
hostility to that branch of Christendom. Neither can 
the Protestant sects be blended into one body organi- 
cally united. But, it is needless to make any state- 
ments on this point, so obvious are the facts in the case. 
In fact, such unity is disavowed by many who are now 
engaged in the discussion of the subject. 

3. It is plain that the restoration of unity must be a 
work of divine power. It will require the operations of 
a grace more special and abundant than we now wit- 
ness in connection with the received ordinances of the 



CONSroEKED WITH EEFERENCE TO UNITY. 69 

Church, to fit into a Kving unity, so that they may be 
one as the Father and the Son are one, the separated 
and scattered members of the body of Christ. It must 
be the result of a revival of spiritual hfe — an extraordi- 
nary outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which shall enlighten 
the minds of baptized men., to see the oneness of their 
hope and faith and obedience — to cast aside all their sec- 
tarian preferences, and submit themselves with one mind 
and one heart to the authority of Christ the Lord. 

4. A restored unity must proceed from a centre or 
nucleus, which shall originate in some supernatural di- 
vine actings recognized as authoritative ; which centre 
shall gather around it, first those members of the body 
who shall be found willing to be gathered into a unity and 
to be moulded collectively into the perfect image of Christ, 
so that the perfect man may be brought forth. The re- 
alization of unity does not require that all shall be gath- 
ered, for there are many among the baptized who will, 
doubtless, reject the counsel of God toward them. What 
is required is, that there shall be a body, in which the 
true unity of the Spirit can be realized. The existence 
of such a body on earth will be to all men a test of their 
willingness to be carried on to perfection. They who 
refuse this test will either be found among the followers 
of Antichrist, or else wUl suffer in the tribulation which 
his reign of iniquity will bring upon all who will be faith- 
ful to the truth. But the purpose of God will be accom- 
plished, to have a body, in which all the members are 
united one to another in the perfect unity of the Spirit. 



70 THE PRESENT STATE OF CHRISTENDOM 

The members of this body will be gathered out of 
all sects — all parties — all fragments of Christendom. 
Through the operation of the Holy Ghost, they will be 
enlightened and moulded into one. Ko sect or frag- 
ment, however great its extent, can be made this centre, 
for that would be to give to one part the honor which 
belongs only to the whole, and to give a sanction to the 
claims of that sect, and an authentication of its errors 
and defects. 

All must admit that here is a nodus vindice dignus — 
a case that will warrant a divine interposition, and it is 
not beyond what we may reasonably expect, to hope 
that God will arise and put to His hand, to remove a 
difficulty which no human wdsdom can reach, and which 
none of the institutions recognized among men have 
hitherto had power to clear away. 

Thus we have the facts and conditions of the problem. 
Let us now pass to consider what we can learn regard- 
ing the method of its solution. 



CHAPTEE lY. 

THE EECOVEET OF OEGAJSTIC UISTITY 

Unity can only be restored by Snpematoral Action— The Original Planting of the 
Church — The Eise of the Ecclesiastical System — Necessity felt for some Ordinance 
for Preserving Unity — Culminating at last in the Papacy — No Conventional Au- 
thority sufficient — The only possible Solution, the Supernatural Appointment of 
Men with Apostolic Powers — Does the New Testament warrant any such expec- 
tation — How it would be done. 

I HAVE said tliat tlie only means of recovering unity, 
is by the establishment through supernatural action, of 
a centre of unity around which those of the baptized who 
are found willing to be moulded into the unity of the 
Spirit may be gathered. Any such movement must 
have a supernatural Initiative, otherwise it would be a 
human work and not an object of faith. As claim- 
ing our recognition, moreover, it must be in harmony 
with what we learn from Holy Scripture, and with 
God's past actings in His Church. We may not look 
for the establishment of a " new Church," such as Swe- 
denborg attempted, for that would be to assume that the 
Church in this dispensation had come to an end, and 
virtually to say, as he does, that the Resurrection was 
past already. The Church restored in unity must be 
the same body which was formed at Pentecost, inheriting 



72 THE RECOVERY OF ORGANIC UNITY. 

the same promises, in which the life then imparted by 
the Holy Ghost has through Baptism had an unbroken 
continuity. The restored unity must consist of the 
members of that same body taken as they are — not bap- 
tized anew, and gathered into one by the operation of 
the Holy Ghost. The principles, too, upon which the 
Church is to be restored in unity, must be those which 
we learn from the New Testament were in operation at 
the beginning of this dispensation. For we cannot ex- 
pect a new revelation ; we nmst be taught out of that 
which we have received, and whereby Christendom is to 
be judged. Even as when Adam fell, God did not destroy 
the fallen race and create a new one, but provided for 
its recovery by a new creation in the Incarnate Word, so 
is the Church to be restored to its unity, not by destruc- 
tion of that which has fallen away and the calling into 
existence of a new body, but by taking the members of 
the existing body, and through the outpouring of the 
Sj)irit reestablishing among them that perfect order from 
which the Church has fallen, thus preserving its iden- 
tity. 

To obtain light on this subject let us then revert 
to the original planting of the Church. 

The Church at the first was all contained in the 
apostolic college. To the twelve was the charter of the 
Church given, not for themselves individually, but as 
the Church. To them was the Holy Ghost first given, 
and by their apostolic action was it imparted to others. 
By their preaching and the power of the Holy Ghost, 



THE RECOVEKT OF ORGAJSTIC UNITY. 73 

men were saved and joined themselves to the apostles, 
and continued steadfastly in their fellowship. Thej con- 
stituted a centre, around which the Church as a body 
was formed. The first local organization was, of course, 
the Church in Jerusalem. As the Gospel extended, 
other Churches were formed in Antioch, in Samaria, in 
Corinth, in Ephesus, in Rome, and to the utmost parts 
of the earth. All these several local churches constituted 
but one society, of which the connecting link was the 
apostolic college. These churches thus united were col- 
lectively the Church of God — the Body of Christ. As 
respects each other, the several churches were independ- 
ent — and here is the grain of truth in the theory of Con- 
gregationalism ; but as respects the whole body, they 
were bound into one by their common subordination to 
the authority of Christ in His apostles. There was not 
one local Church, as that of Jerusalem, claiming to be 
the root or trunk of which all the rest were branches. 
"No Church claimed to be the mother and mistress of all 
churches. Christ was the vine, the stock, the trunk, and 
the churches were branches in Him. The authority of 
the Lord in His apostles was the cementing link of the 
whole. This was the " bond of peace " by which all were 
held together. Subjection to this made the whole to be 
one body. So long as the apostles lived, there could be 
no doubt or question as to where the bond of unity lay. 
As Churches continued in the "Apostles' fellowship," so 
were they in fellowship with one another ; and, as St. 

John writes in his first epistle (chap. i. 3), as they were in 
4 



74 THE EECOVEKY OF OEGANIC UNITY. 

fellowship with the apostles, they were in fellowship with 
the Father and the Son. 

Such was the unity of the whole Church. 

The unity of the local church was secured by the 
appointment of one of the elders to preside over the 
rest, upon whom rested the responsibility and oversight 
of the whole.* 

After the death of the apostles, a further effort to se- 
cure unity on a larger scale resulted in the appointment 
of Metropolitans, and ultimately of Patriarchs, of which 
in the early Church there were, according to Bingham, 
in the fourth century thirteen, but of which the num- 
ber was at length reduced to four, viz. : E,ome, Antioch, 
Constantinople, and Alexandria. These are simply his- 
torical facts, and their significance is this : that in the 
centuries directly following the apostolic age, in the ab- 
sence of Apostles the Church felt the necessity for some 
ordinance for the preservation of unity — for keeping the 
whole Christian community together. There was an in- 
stinct of unity in it which resisted the disintegrating 
tendency, by conceding to the chief pastors in the prin- 
cipal cities of the empire, an authority over the sur- 
rounding churches. For the local, the Metropolitical, 
and the Patriarchal sees, this arrangement furnished a 
bond of unity for the churches within their respective 

* Qt. Kolug •KpoEGTUTEQ iTpeafivTEpoL (1 Tim. V. 1*7). This evidently refers 
to the elders who in the several churches were placed over their brethren 
as presidents ; i. e., were made bishops — called in the Apocalypse " angels." 
It is strange that men of learning should cite this text as a scriptural war- 
rant for what are by Presbyterians called Ruling Elders 



THE EECOVEEY OF ORGANIC UNITY. Y5 

territories. The cases of Timotliy and Titus, who were 
sent by St. Paul to exercise authority over the churches 
in and around Ephesus and Crete, suggest the probability 
that this subordination to Metropolitans and Patriarchs 
was not without apostolic sanction. As such it would 
have weight and force upon the conscience in a way that 
no conventional arrangement could do. But there was 
for centuries no authority claimed or exercised over the 
whole Church, until, after the conversion of Constantine, 
first the Emperor, and afterwards the Bishop of Rome as- 
sumed that authority. The earliest exercise of universal 
authority was by the Emperor.* From him it passed 
over, so far as the Western Church was concerned, to the 
Pope. The acquiescence of the whole Church east and 
west in the supremacy of the Emperor, and of the "Western 
Church in that of the Pope, shows that there was a con- 
viction in the mind of Christendom of the need of a 
central authority to bind the Church together into one. 

Still, any authority that is merely conventional, self- 
imposed, and not recognized as absolutely jure divino, 
will fail to produce perfect results even in those who ac- 
knowledge it ; and for this reason, that the recognition 
of it does not proceed from faith. The ecclesiastical 
system which has a conventional origin can only control 
the rational judgment of men, and when it ceases to do 
that, its power is gone. The secret of the power which 
the Church of Rome exerts over its members lies in the 
conviction it has been able to produce, that the Pope is 

* In a later chapter I shall furnish some illustrations of this fact. 



76 THE EECOVEKY OF ORGANIC UNITY. 

the successor of Peter in the See of Eome, and as such 
has received from the Lord an indefeasible authority over 
the whole Church, vfhich it is deadly sin to question or 
resist. However mistaken this is on the part of Roman 
Catholics, an act of faith. The Church is identified 
with the Papacy as a divinely planted institution, which 
may not be set aside, and which as such has the promise 
and assurance of infallibility. The eifect of this belief 
upon the conscience is as powerful as though it rested 
upon an actual revelation, and it is thus to that body the 
bond of unity. It is only when the moral results of the 
Papal system suggest doubts of its having a divine au- 
thority that there can be any shaking of the allegiance 
which is felt to be due to a truly divine ordinance. 

In order, then, to the recovery of a unity by which 
the whole Church throughout the world may be bound 
into one universal or Catholic organization, there umst 
be a central authority which can be received and re- 
spected as being placed and endowed by Christ Himself 
— an authority such as that by which the Church at the 
beginning was constituted one body. 

How, then, can this authority be brought into exist- 
ence? It may not be conventional, or originated by 
the agreement of men or churches one with another. 
It may not, as the papacy did, grow out of the grants of 
authority wliich the churches conceded, first to Metro- 
politans and then to Patriarchs. It must come from 
above. It can proceed only from supernatural actings of 
God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. It must 



THE EECOVEET OF OEGANIC UNITY. 17 

have its hold upon the faith of the Church. In plain 
words, the only possible solution of the problem of unity 
is, the supernatural appointment of men with apostolic 
authority and apostolic powers, who shall enter into the 
ministry and possess the endowments of tlie Apostles 
who were at the beginning, to whom the Lord said, 
"As my Father hath sent me, so send I you ; " " Lo, I 
am with you all days, even to the consummation of the 
age." 

Such a ministry, and no other, will furnish a centre of 
unity around which all may gather who are willing to be 
gathered into a unity. The recognition of it will fur- 
nish a restraint upon the wills and the intellects of men, 
whereby the spirit of obedience and of teachableness 
will be exercised, and men may become like little children. 
Being received by faith and apprehended by spiritual 
discernment, it will give exercise to the spiritual nature, 
and will repress the sharp logical tendency which excites 
self-conceit and hardens the heart from the exercise of 
charity. 

Such a ministry of Apostleship would, from its en- 
dowment of divine wisdom, be qualified to decide all 
doubtful questions of doctrine, and thus remove one of 
the existing causes of division, while the recognition of 
it as a supreme central authority, having the mind of 
Christ and led by His Spirit, will preclude all rivalries 
and contentions among different Churches. It would be 
qualified by its supernatural endowment, not only to 
prescribe the true order of divine worship, but also so to 



T8 THE EECOVEEY OF OEGANIC TmiTY. 

instruct, that men's prejudices may be removed, and they 
be made willing to dwell together as brethren in unity. 

Is there any warrant in the ITew Testament for the 
expectation of such a favor ? To me it seems very clear. St. 
Paul says, " God hath set Apostles first in the Church." 
This implies that the Apostolic office proper is an essen- 
tial part of her constitution, without which she cannot 
be complete ; and surely we may look to God to give 
whatever shall be necessary to make perfect the Bride of 
His Son. The promise of the Lord, " Lo, I am with you," 
etc., also implies that there is no time when the Church 
may not hope to receive from Him the gift of Apostle- 
ship. Apostleship comprehends all other ministries, and 
the words of the Lord constitute a promise to the Church 
of all the fulness of ministry in men, which she may need 
at any time during this dispensation. 

It will not be difficult to understand how such a min- 
istry may be raised up of God, if we fully recognize 
Christ as the living Head of the Church at the Right 
hand of the Father. In sending forth His Apostles be- 
fore His ascension, He did not abdicate His right to in- 
terfere directly in the affairs of His Church at any and at 
all times. N^ay, the promise of His presence with the 
Church, implies that he may exercise His prerogative to 
send forth whom He may choose at any and at all times. 
This right certainly was exercised in the case of Paul, 
whom He called from the heavens, and sent him forth 
with a power and authority equal to that of the first 
twelve ; and what He did then He may do again. The 



THE EECOVEET OF OEGANIC UNITY. 79 

ordinary way of God's acting in tlie Church is by ordi- 
nances. No man has any right to assume, that he can 
individually obtain any grace or spiritual benefit from 
God, except through the ordinances of divine appoint- 
ment. To expect any thing else is fanaticism, which can 
result only in evil. But God is not so tied to His own or- 
dinances that He may not in exigencies act without them. 
When that ordinance in which all other ordinances are 
concentrated has lapsed, it is not fanaticism to expect 
that He may interpose to restore that ordinance that His 
Church may be complete. This ordinance of Apostle- 
ship is not a secondary, but a primary one. It comes 
not into existence through the agency of any other ordi- 
nance. Apostles are not of man, neither by men, but by 
Jesus Christ and God the Father (Gal. i. 1). God may 
make men to be Apostles, and give assurance to the 
Church of their calling in such form as shall justify the 
Church in receiving them as sent by the Lord. 

Such an act of God, as supernatural and extraordi- 
nary, would indeed make a demand upon our faith. It 
would be an acting that would partake of the miraculous ; 
but it will be admitted by every one who adequately 
considers the subject, that unity cannot be restored with- 
out miracle. There are no means now in operation for 
effecting unity, and its recovery cannot be looked for 
without a supply of means adapted to the end. If the 
means are not in operation, they must be supplied from 
on high ; they must come in an extraordinary way. Can 
any one, who admits that the Church is a divine crea- 



80 THK KECOVEKT OF OKGANIO UNITY. 

tion — a supernatural organizatiou, in whicli, througli or- 
dinances and sacraments, there is a constant flowing 
fortli of supernatural life, deny tlie possibility of an ex- 
traordinary operation of supernatural power to effect 
such a grand result as that of unity ? Is it too much to 
hope for, that God the Father, and the Lord Jesus 
Christ, should provide means and ordinances whereby 
the Holy Ghost, dwelling in the Church, may work in 
the hearts of the faithful to knit them into one, and thus 
fulfil the petitions of the Lord's intercessory prayer ? 

The restoration of a ministry endow^ed with the au- 
thority that was at first conferred upon apostles, and 
with the grace needful to make that authority effectual, 
would completely supply the want. Here would be a 
centre for the entire Christian world, by the recognition, 
of which all the baptized may be united into one. Here 
would be an authority by which open questions may be 
settled, and unruly and ambitious wills maybe brought 
into subjection, or cut off as useless branches from the 
vine. 

The statement has been made, and there are many, 
doubtless, who would be ready to assert it, that no insti- 
tution can be recognized as a means of unity W'hich has 
not had an unbroken continuity in the Church from the 
beginning. This would be to aflirm that the Church can 
never have lost or forfeited any of the grace that was 
conferred upon her at the first. And yet, so far as prin- 
ciples go, the statement may, to a certain extent, be ad- 
mitted. For the greater part of the time that has 



THE EECOVEKY OF ORGANIC UNITY. 81 

elapsed since the history of the Church began, the ne- 
cessity of some ministry answering to the apostolic has 
been felt, and a substitute for it has been recognized. It 
was seen in the fourth century that some authority was 
needed that should be universal in its scope ; and in the 
absence of any proper ecclesiastical authority, the Em- 
perors assumed universal supremacy. Only the felt ne- 
cessity of a ministry of apostolic powers, could have ren- 
dered possible the ascendency which the Bishops of 
Rome acquired and attempted to exert over the whole 
of Christendom. For centuries past, Rome has been 
known as the Apostolio See, and it has been claimed to 
be the inheritor of all apostolic, as distinguished from 
episcopal, powers. The idea, then, of an apostolic min- 
istry is not a new one, nor is the belief in its necessity as 
a bond of unity. It has not been recognized in the Eng- 
lish Church for three centuries past, it is true (and it is 
fi'om this quarter that the objection proceeds), but Eng- 
land is a small part of Christendom, and the voice of the 
English Church has had no great weight in these cen- 
turies as an authority in such matters. 

The way in which unity would be restored by such 
an agency would be, not by drawing different churches 
and sects together and compromising their difficulties, 
but by gathering out of all churches those who were pre- 
pared to receive such a grace, and knitting them into a 
perfect unity by spiritual bonds. Such would form a 
nucleus, in which the true principles of unity could be 
exemplified, and around which might ultimately be gath- 



82 THE EECOVERY OF OKGAIJIC UNITY. 

ered all who should desire to be delivered from the city 
of confusion which Christendom has become. Thus 
would the Lord have on earth a body in which the unity 
of the Father and the Son — the true unity of the Spirit 
— could be seen, and by which He might save and gather 
into one all who would be willing to be saved, so that 
we may all come into the unity of the faith and of the 
knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man. Thus 
would the desire expressed in our Lord's prayer be ful- 
filled, and the end be attained of having on this earth a 
body perfectly constituted in unity — a " Church without 
spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, holy and without 
blemish " — prepared to be translated and to be presented 
to tlie Lord at His coming, as a bride adorned for her 
husband. 

It would not follow that such a ministry supernatur- 
ally supplied would be at once recognized and received 
even by all true Christians. Its recognition would be a 
test of the faith and obedience of men — of their willing- 
ness to be freed from the narrow bonds of sectarianism, 
and to be gathered together into one, Not without trial 
and judgment would the gathering be efiected. The 
churches would need to feel the pressure of the rising 
power of Antichrist before they would so realize the 
need of a common bond as to be willing to receive a 
supernatural visitation ; for schism has defiled and pol- 
luted the entire Church, and there is no portion of it 
that is willing to be made a living sacrifice. " All seek 
their own, not the things that are Jesus Christ's." 



I 



THE KECOVEKT OF ORGANIC UNITT. 83 

I have stated tliis matter hypotlietically, and believe 
it to be the only metbod by which the problem of a re- 
covered unity can be solved. But it is not mere hy- 
pothesis : the hypothesis is derived from existing facts. 
There has been for thirty years past a spiritual work in 
progress, in which this theory — so to call it — has been 
realized. In the year of grace, 1830, God in answer to 
the prayers of many of His faithful people, who sought 
from Him a reviving in His Chm'ch, was pleased to pour 
out His Spirit in Scotland and other parts of the British 
Isles, by which the gifts of the Holy Ghost were revived, 
especially the gift of prophecy attended by some striking 
cases of miraculous healing. They who received these 
gifts, and others who recognized them, were led by the 
words of the Holy Ghost thus spoken to pray earnestly 
to God to send Apostles to His Church. In the year 
1832 this prayer began to be answered by the supernat- 
ural calling (somewhat after the manner in which Paul 
and Barnabas were called in Antioch, Acts ch. xiii.) of 
first one, and then another among those who believed in 
those things, to be Apostles, until the complete number 
of twelve were thus called, and in 1835 they were sol- 
emnly separated to their work. 

Since that time they have been fulfilling their minis- 
try, and by them churches have been formed in differ- 
ent parts of Europe and America, in which the principle 
of unity has been developed, and every form of truth 
which has at any time found expression in the universal 
Church, has been recognized and set forth. The Apos- 



84 THE EECOVEET OF OKGANIC UNITY. 

tolic College is a central authority — a Catholic Supeem- 
AOT, wMch binds into one all the several churches 
which acknowledge them, in Great Britain, Germany, 
Holland, Switzerland, Canada, and the United States, 
and wherever believers are found. In these churches 
every thing that is essential to the perfect unity of the 
Spirit is maintained — absolute uniformity in doctrine, 
and harmony in all teaching — uniformity as to all the 
essentials of worship, identity in the form of organiza- 
tion, and of ministry as far as the materials are at hand. 
All are " perfectly joined together in the same mind and 
in the same judgment." 

The system has been long enough in operation to test 
its capabilities. It does not preclude the entrance of all 
evil. It does not restrain men absolutely from sin, and 
from apostacy from the Church — this cannot be in the nat- 
ural body — but it has shown its capacity for throwing off 
every opposing element, and for subduing, with none but 
spiritual agencies, the wills of men into subjection to an 
authority which is the authority of the Lord. The Apos- 
tleship, being the divine ordinance for the guidance of 
the Church into all truth, is looked to as the determiner 
of questions of serious doubt that might, in the hands of 
inferior ministers, occasion strife and dissension. Apos- 
tles do not assume to be " Yicars of Christ," nor does any 
one Apostle act on a question of universal concern with- 
out his brethren. The unity of the Lord's rule is made 
manifest by being vested in a definite number, which 
can act as one, and acts not unless all are agreed togeth- 



THE EECOVEKY OF OKGANIO imiTT. 85 

er as to what they shall ask for, and what shall be de- 
creed. 

It falls not within the range of my present undertak- 
ing to enter into a history of this work, or a detail of the 
organization effected by it. I refer to it in this connec- 
tion as a demonstration of the practicability of the meth- 
od which has been herein laid down. The assertion 
of a title to Apostleship, of course, needs some signs to 
prove its warrant. Nothing can more effectually do 
this than the fruits of thirty years' labors. These, I af- 
firm, show the possibility of a recovered unity by means 
of a supernatural divine acting. They show vsrhat may 
be done if the faithful servants of Christ — those vfho truly 
believe in Him and love Him — will but consent to lay 
aside their sectarian prejudices, and admit the reality of 
His rule in the Church, and submit themselves to Him. 
There is already a body sufficiently large, known as the 
" Catholic Apostolic Church " — by which name is to be 
understood, not that it claims that title exclusively, but 
that it refuses to be called by any other — to make it 
clear what it might be if it were larger in respect to 
numbers, and wide enough in its extent, to show that it 
might embrace the whole of Christendom. It is a stand- 
ing proof of the possibility of a Catholic Church — of a 
universal organization without the evils of the Papacy. 
It is a standing witness against the confusion of Baby- 
lon — the Sectarianism of the present age. 

It is the solution of the problem how unity may be 
restored. 



CHAPTEE V. 

THEOKIES OF UNITY. 

The Episcopal theory of Unity, that the collective Episcopate is the Bond of Unity— 
But what is to unite the Bishops, who have been the chief agents of Schism ? — Gen- 
eneral acknowledgment of Episcopacy by Protestant sects would not unite them 
with Eome, nor with the East. 

We have already considered the theory of unity which 
is entertained by the greater part of the Christian com- 
munities which have resulted from the Protestant Eefor- 
mation, viz. : that the only unity that is to be looked for 
is a unity of spirit which allows of the existence of sects, 
and has no corresponding organization. Into this view 
the Episcopalians of the low church school, I believe, 
enter for the most part. 

Another view is that held by the Episcopalians of 
the high church school, which is known as Anglicanism, 
viz. : that the unity of organization in the Church con- 
sists in the collective episcopate, by which, as by a grand 
chain reaching down from the beginning and extending 
throughout the world, the whole Church is bound into 
a corporation, while difierent national churches are so 
many distinct and coordinate branches of the one body — 
the peculiarity of the theory being the denial of any 



THEORIES OF UNITY. 8t 

ministry for uniting tlie wliole company of bishops into 
one organization, or any head of the episcopate. 

A third theory is that of the Papacy, which affirms 
that the one Church must be united under one head, and 
that the bishop of the Church of Rome, as the successor 
of St. Peter, is the divinely appointed head of the uni- 
versal Church. 

A few pages will be devoted to the consideration of 
these two last named theories. 

The collective episcopate extends over the whole of 
Christendom, embracing the heads of all the local or di- 
ocesan churches throughout the world. The churches 
respectively are united in their bishops : but how are the 
bishops united ? It is idle to say the bishops are united 
by their ordination, or apostoKc succession, and that this 
is the bond of unity. As well might the common union 
which all Christians have in their baptism be adduced as 
the complete bond of unity. All Christians are one as 
members of the one body, and all bishops are one as 
members of the one episcopate, and all priests are one as 
members of the one priesthood ; but the oneness of the 
members of the episcopate no more fulfils the idea oi 
unity which the Church is to attain, than does the one- 
ness of the membership by baptism. The bishops of the 
East and the "West are not united, though both alike are 
members of the collective episcopate; neither are the 
bishops of the Eoman and Anglican Churches. I^ay, 
even intercommunion, as between the Episcopal churches 
in England and America, where there is no common organ- 



OO THEORIES OF TJNITT. 

ization, does not constitute unity. Much less is the posses- 
sion of the common episcopate, when the churches are at 
variance, the bond of unity. Who have been the prime 
agents in the schisms that have rent Christendom asun- 
der ? Who are the parties primarily and directly in an- 
tagonism ? Are they not the bishops ? Who have been 
the leaders in the earlier, and, as respects the great 
schism, the lesser schisms which occurred in the East ? 
Were they not the bishops ? Who were the prime con- 
testants in the long-protracted quarrels which produced 
the great schism? Were they not the Patriarchs of 
Rome and of Constantinople, representing the arch- 
bishops and bishops subject to them respectively ? Might 
not an objector to the Episcopal order say that the laity 
had nothing to do with these controversies, and that but 
for the ambition and strife of their prelates the schism 
would never have occurred ? What but the ambition of 
the Roman PontiflPs, sustained by their subject bishops 
on the one hand, and the refusal of the Eastern bishops 
to own the supremacy of the Poman Church on 
the other, has prevented the healing of that schism to 
the present hour? Would the acknowledgment of the 
episcopate by the non-Episcopal Churches be a restoration 
of Catholic unity ? Would not the Episcopal churches 
be as much as ever divided from the Church of Rome ? 
The episcopate needs a universal headship — a centre — as 
much as the body of the baptized. The question still 
recurs : Quis custodiet custodes f Who shall unite the 
bishops, so as to cause them to preserve the unity of the 



THEORIES OF TINITT. 89 

Spirit ? to be one as the Father and the Son are one? to 
bring them to be perfectly joined together in the same 
mind and in the same judgment ? How is it in tho 
purely Episcopal churches — those of England and Amer- 
ica — which have a common episcopate ? Is unity per- 
fect among them ? Are they agreed in point of doc- 
trine ? What say the various parties of high and low 
Anglicans, Evangelicals, Broad Church ? Is the influ- 
ence of the episcopate such as to lead the people on to 
the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son 
of God ? Do not the doctrinal and practical differences 
that exist between bishops and clergy of different schools 
declare that the knowledge of the Son of God among 
them comes far short of that perfection which is implied 
in Unity ? 

In truth, this theory can only be maintained on the 
ground upon which Congregationalism is defended — that 
there is required no visible ordinance for unity. It is 
only Congregationalism on a large scale — the congrega- 
tions being in this case dioceses headed up in bishops, 
instead of local churches personally represented. The 
principle which requires Episcopacy as the bond of unity 
for the local church, can only be logically complete 
when applied to the universal Church, and the denial of 
the necessity of a bond of unity for the universal Church 
cannot logically stop short of its denial in relation to the 
local church. 

These then are facts — that the collective episcopate 
does not operate as a bond of peace, holding Christen- 



90 THEORIES OF UNITT. 

dom together in such, manner as to exercise and develop 
the "Qnity of the Spirit, and that the members of the col- 
lective episcopate have been the principal agents in 
causing the divisions of Christendom. 

I^or would it be any different if the episcopal princi- 
ple were universally restored by the dissolution of the 
Papacy, or by the non-episcopal bodies adopting Episco- 
pacy. This must be said for the Papacy, that it re- 
strains the tendency to schism, which, without it, would 
break out afresh, and aggravate what now prevails. 



CHAPTER YI. 

THE EOMAIf DOCTErSTE OP TJOTTT. 

The Eoman Church has always witnessed to Unity — Two distinct Ideas — Catholic 
Unity and the form of its Eealization — Papal arguments — The Primacy of Peter — 
What it involved — His position compared with that of Paul — ^A Primacy in the 
Apostolic College necessary that they might act as one — Arguments of E. J. Wil- 
berforce examined — The Bishop of Eome did not inherit Peter's primacy — What is 
the amount of the distinction that the early Fathers ascribe to the See of Eome — 
The Primacy of Peter a different thing from the Supremacy of the Popes — Admitted 
by Eoman Catholic writers — Pfulkes on the Divisions of East and West — The first 
acts of Supremacy exerted by Constantino and his successors. 

Of all tlie several parts into wHch Christendom is 
divided, the only one that has maintained the true idea 
of Catholic unity, is that v^hich is united under the Bish- 
op of Home. This, no doubt, has ever been, and is still, 
the secret of her great strength and durability. It 
is a superficial philosophy which, can be satisfied with 
asserting that the entire system of the Papacy is false — 
that there are no divine principles involved in it. It has 
become an axiom with all thinking persons, that no sys- 
tem ever took and kept a strong hold upon a large part 
of mankind which had not in it elements of truth. 
When, therefore, we are called upon to meet and coun- 
teract the influence of any system of institutions, which 
we are persuaded is, on the whole, contrary to truth, the 



92 THE EOMAJSr DOCTRINE OF UNITY. 

first step to any successful conflict is to discover and elim- 
inate the elements of trutli which it contains, so that what 
remains may be the more unsparingly and rigorously 
assailed. There are several distinct forms of truth to 
which the Roman Church has at all times given witness, 
more steadily than has been done by any other j)ortion 
of divided Christendom. She has the deep things of God 
which have been by perversion made to be the " depths 
of Satan ;" but we must beware lest, in our hatred of the 
perversion, we also reject the truth. 

One of the truths to which the Roman Church has 
continued to give a witness is that of unity — the unity 
of the whole Christian body under one organization. 
This is the truth ; the error which has been the parent 
of many other errors which pervade the actual Roman 
system is, that the headship of the Catholic Church is by 
divine authority vested in the Bishop of Rome. It is 
very manifest that here are two ideas which we may re- 
gard separately. The idea of unity is one thing, the 
form of its realization another. Assuming, as is done in 
this discussion, the truth of Catholic unity, there remains 
the inquiry what there is to support the Roman doc- 
trine of the form in which it is realized. 

In a discussion of this nature this question could not 
be well passed over. Still I do not purpose to go into 
any exhaustive examination of it, nor to enter upon any 
original investigations of its history or progress. I shall 
make use mainly of the statements and admissions of wri- 
ters in the Roman Catholic interest. The two authors to 



THE KOMAJSr DOCTEINE OF UNITY. 93 

whom I propose to refer are, R. J. Wilberforce, formerly 
Archdeacon in the English Church, in his work on the 
" Principle of Church Authority," written as an apology 
for his secession to Rome, and a recent work entitled, 
" The Divisions of Christendom on East and West, by Ed- 
mund S. Efulkes, formerly fellow and tutor of Jesus Col- 
lege, Oxford." This latter work seems to be written in 
the hope of preparing the way for renewed eilbrts for the 
restoration of unity, and while fully in the interest of 
Kome, yet makes a frank admission of the facts which 
serve as an apology for the divisions which the author 
hopes to contribute to healing. There can be no better 
sources of reference than such authors. They are men 
whose adhesion to the Papacy is not the result of educa- 
tion, but has come from the consideration of arguments 
which they place in the strongest light in which they 
can be put. 

The first link in this chain of argument — the staple 
from which it all hangs, is the primacy of Peter in the 
Apostolic College. This I must admit. All that is said 
of and to Peter by our Lord, and by the writers of the 
ISTew Testament, cannot pass for nothing. Peter was, in 
one sense, the "Pock" on which the Church was built. 
He was the Eirst — as stated by St. Matthew (ch. x. 2) — 
and that not merely in the order of his calling — in which 
he was not first apparently, but as 2i primus inter pares. 
There is something significant in our Lord's words to 
him. " Satan hath desired to have you, that he might 
sift you as wheat : but I have prayed for thee, that thy 



94 raEK^ESNnDOCTRraEOTC®^ 

faith fail not : and when thou art converted, strengthen 
thy brethren " (Luke xxii. 32). The charge which the 
Lord gave to him after the Resurrection, "feed my 
lambs, feed my sheep," cannot be supposed to be devoid 
of some special significance. When Paul went to Jeru- 
salem, he went " to see Peter." All this implies some 
positive relation to the rest of the Apostles. It may 
well be called ajjWmacy, and it remains to inquire what 
is involved in it. 

I cannot accede to Wilberforce's notion, that Peter, 
as distinguished from his brethren, " was to be associated 
by peculiar copartnership in one of the functions of his 
master, and become by grace that which Christ was by 
nature." This is a theory without a shadow of Scriptu- 
ral warrant, and is a bold assumption upon which to 
build up the theory of the Papacy. The real signifi- 
cance of the distinction of Peter is, doubtless, what was 
asserted by the early writers, that the unity of the Apos- 
tolate might be represented in him. The twelve were to 
act as one, and so the charge w^as given to one for all, 
that there might be no divisive action. In this view it 
may be admitted as possibly true, though it certainly 
cannot be proved from the I^ew Testament, that Peter's 
assent and approval was requisite to the efiiciency of the 
united action of the Apostolic college, though there \t\ 
no ground at all for what "Wilberforce claims (p. 1Y2), 
"that the cooperation of no other individual was neces- 
sary to him." His primacy could not make him inde- 
pendent of his brethren. The Apostolate was repre- 



THE ROMAN DOCTKINE OF UNITY. 95 

sented in Peter, and was thus constituted into a twelve- 
fold unity, but there is no evidence that farther than 
this there was any function, or any prerogative belong- 
ing to him, which was not equally exercised by all the 
rest. 

But while it is admitted that Peter held such a pri- 
macy among his fellow apostles to the circumcision, what 
shall be said of the relations of Paul ? Clearly he was 
not subordinate to Peter. He himself declares he was 
" not a whit behind the very chiefest of the Apostles " 
(2 Cor. xi. 5), and it is evident that he held a position anal- 
agous to Peter's. This is a point that has been very 
much overlooked, and needs explaining. Peter was the 
head of an organized apostleship who were sent to the 
Jews. Paul calls himself " the Apostle of the Gentiles." 
The Apostleship of the Gentiles was committed to him, 
as the Apostleship of the Circumcision was to Peter. 
These words define his position.* Whatever position 
Peter held in the one case, Paul held in the other. If 
Peter were the Primate of the apostles to the Jews, 
Paul was Primate in the Apostleship of the Gentiles. 
Wilberforce gives one citation in which this view of the 
respective relations of the two apostles is expressly de- 
clared. He says (p. 164) : " Hilary the deacon says : 
' Paul mentions Peter alone, and compares him to him- 
self because he had received a primacy for the founding 

* He received a distract commission involving all the gifts that had al- 
ready been bestowed, and which were involved in Apostleship, and also 
whatever specialty belonged to Peter. 



96 THE KOMAN DOCTRINE OF UNTTY, 

of the Churcli, while he himself was elected in like man- 
ner to have a primacy in founding the churches of the 
Gentiles,' " Again : " As he assigns associates to Peter, 
namely, the illustrious men among the apostles, so he 
joins Barnabas to himself, who had been associated with 
him by divine appointment ; yet he claims the grace of 
the Primacy as granted by God to himself alone, as to 
Peter alone was it granted among the apostles." 

The principle of a Primacy — a First from whom 
unity might proceed, and by whom the Twelve were 
bound into one, which was first exemplified in Peter, was 
further exemplified in Paul. He had an office, the same 
in its nature as was Peter's, but a ministry which was 
entirely distinct. But he had a distinct and more ad- 
vanced revelation than Peter's, which he calls " my gos- 
pel," and which he declares he was taught by special rev- 
elation, not having received it through the medium of 
Peter or his brethren (Gal. i. 11, 12) ; and he went up 
to Jerusalem " to see Peter," because it was necessary 
that there should be a perfect understanding between 
the two apostleships. Peter was not primate with re- 
spect to him, but only with respect to his fellow Apostles 
to the Circumcision. Paul's primacy was not so dis- 
tinctly called into exercise, because he had not associated 
with him a full number of apostles. He speaks of him- 
self as an eK-gufia (1 Cor. xi. 7), a premature birth, the 
meaning of which is, that the time had not arrived for 
the Church to bring forth from her womb the fully 
formed Apostleship to the Gentiles ; but in order to the 



THE KOMAN DOCTRDSTE OF UNITY. 97 

revelation of the purpose of God in the Gentiles, it was 
necessary that one should be thus early, prematurely 
called forth to inaugurate the Gentile Church, and commit 
to it the revelation which was not made to the Church 
of the Circumcision ; which apostleship was to come out 
in its completeness in the end of the dispensation. A 
Primacy in Paul, therefore, has the same effect as a 
Primacy in Peter, and this dignity was not a preroga- 
tive peculiar to that apostle. 

A Primacy in the apostolic college was requisite to 
the unity of the Apostolate, inasmuch as no collective 
body can act without a head ; and the scriptural fact of 
the primacy of Peter is the standing answer to the the- 
ory that the visible Church can be bound in unity with- 
out a visible centre of unity. Here is a reason sufficient 
to justify all that is said in the l^ew Testament that im- 
plies a primacy in the apostolic college vested in Peter, 
and in this view we can but be struck with the evident 
exaggeration which pervades the whole argument of 
Wilberforce in his statements of the relation of Peter to 
the Church. In fact, the argument is overdone; for 
there is ascribed to Peter a peculiarity of office far be- 
yond any thing hinted at in the Scriptures, and which 
nothing short of special revelation could warrant us in 
believing had devolved upon any successor. 

The admission of a Primacy held by Peter in the 
original apostolic college, by no means involves an assent 
to the inference that the Bishop of Rome inherits that 
prerogative as his successor. 



yb THE KOMAN DOCTRINE OF TJNITY. 

1. Peter held the primacy as an apostle, and it could 
be only an apostle in the full sense of the word that 
could in any way succeed to that oifice. The whole 
of Wilberforce's argument rests upon the assumption 
that the Apostolate is perpetuated in the Episcopate. 
This is the fallacy which underlies this whole discussion, 
on the Protestant as well as the Roman side. But it is 
directly contrarj'- to Scripture. There is no evidence 
there that the apostles intended to convey their own pe- 
culiar functions to any of the ministers whom they ap- 
pointed. The apostles were appointed by the Lord, with 
the words, " As my Father hath sent me so send I you." 
'No such words passed upon any of the bishops whom 
the apostles ordained. They were not, as the Twelve 
were, "named apostles" (Luke vi. 13), and consequently 
could not enter upon their office. An apostle is "not of 
men, neither by man, but of Jesus Christ and God the 
Father " (Gal. i. 1) — directly called of God. It belonged 
not to the apostles to send other apostles, consequently 
any office or official rank which Peter held among his 
brethren derived from his apostolical character, he could 
not communicate ; and if he could not impart the office of 
apostleship, much less could he that of apostolic Pri- 
macy. 

2. It is an assumption that Peter ever really held the 
office of Bishop of the Church of Pome. I do not mean 
to call in question the ancient tradition that he and St. 
Paul were together at Rome, and united in founding the 
Church there ; but if there, Peter was there as an 



THE KOMAN DOCTRINE OF UNITY. 99 

Apostle, establisliing the Church, guarding it and setting 
it in order ; and it was in so doing that he ordained 
Linus, as the tradition runs (though some authorities, I 
believe, refer the ordination of Linus to Paul, and that 
of Clement to Peter), as the bishop thereof during his 
lifetime, and not as his successor. 

3. It is very clear that no such dignity was claimed 
by the earlier bishops of Rome after the apostolic age, 
as that of Primate over the whole Church. 'No trace of 
any assertion of any special dignity for that Church is 
apparent until some time in the second century. ]l!^ow, 
it is absolutely incredible that it should have been so if 
the case really had been such as the defenders of the Pa- 
pacy allege. Peter, when he wrote his Epistles, called 
himself the "Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ." It was in- 
cumbent on him to assert his calling — to make known the 
relation in which he stood to the Church and to the Lord. 
Could it have been less so with one who was really his 
successor ? But in the Epistle of Clement we see no such 
assertion of office — nothing that could suggest that he as 
Bishop of Eome had any preeminence over his brethren. 
It is an epistle written in the name of the Church of 
Rome to that of Corinth. Its temper is that of pater- 
nal admonition, and it contains nothing which implies any 
such superiority as Primacy. 

The earliest indications of any thing like an assertion 
of a claim of Primacy that these Roman Catholic writers 
adduce, are as late as the third century. Cyprian is the 
earliest writer whom "Wilberforce cites as calling- the 



100 THE ROMAN DOCTELNE OF UNITY. 

Episcopal See of Rome " the chair of Peter." He refers 
to many authors as saying that Peter founded the See of 
Pome, and that Linus succeeded him, but nothing at that 
early period that implies that the Bishop of Pome inherited 
the prerogatives of the apostle. A respect is claimed for 
the Church of Pome as of ancient apostolic foundation, 
even as early as the time of the Quartodeciraan contro- 
versy ; but we are struclc with the utter absence of any 
thing out of which the claim of papal supremacy could 
have grown.* One citation which Wilberforce makes from 

* All that can be deduced from the references in the writers of the ear- 
lier centuries to the See of Rome is, that that Church had a peculiar dignity 
and consideration, as being of apostolic foundation. It was the Church 
that gave importance to the bishop rather than the bishop to the Church. 
It was the Seat of Peter, as it began to be called, that imparted authority 
to the bishop who occupied it, rather than the successor of Peter, that gave 
weight to the see. Thus Ffulkes says : 

" That the See of Rome was supposed to possess some inherent pre- 
rogatives" (this is rather a stronger expression than the facts warrant) " no 
student of ecclesiastical history will now deny ; and the most hostile ex- 
planation that can be given of them is, that they attached to it as the seat 
of empire. This may or may not be the fair inference to be drawn from 
those well-known canons of the second and fourth General Councils, in 
which rank ' next after Rome ' is given to the See of Constantinople ; but it 
is certainly fair to call attention to what they suppress as well as express. 
Constantinople had, in fact, no other title to put forward but that of its im- 
perial importance. Rome, on the other hand, in addition to any mere im- 
perial privileges, had another that had infinitely more charms for Christen- 
dom, namely, the preeminence of its apostolic origin. As it was the only 
see in the West which could boast of that distinction, so it was the only 
see in all the world that had been founded, not by one apostle, but by two, 
and those the greatest of the apostles. This, incomparably more than the 
other, is the fact so glowingly dwelt upon by Irenaeus, Cyprian, Tertullian, 
Athanasius, Augustine, and others who have testified to the prerogatives of 
the See of Rome ; and if they have nowhere defined those prerogatives, it 
is quite certain that both fathers and councils continually acted as recog- 
nizing in them a good deal more than mere words " (pp. 22, 23). 

All the citations this author gives from those fathers go to this extent and 
no more ; that the Church of Rome was entitled to respect and reverence, 



THE KOMAN DOCTKINE OF UNITY. 101 

Tertullian seems rather like irony. Complaining of the 
relaxation of discipline he says : " I hear that an edict 
has been propounded, and that a peremptory one : the 
Pontifex Maximus, it seems, that is the Bishop of bishops, 
gives out, I remit the crimes of adultery and fornication 
to the penitent ; " and he adds that Tertullian, who had 
at that time become a Montanist, asserts that the apostle 
had received no other than a personal commission, and 
denies that the Chnrch had any authority to readmit 
men to communion after deadly sins. The application of 
the term Pontifex Maximus, the title of the Pagan em- 
perors to the Bishop of Pome, seems to imply that there 
was a tendency to exaggeration of the authority of that 
see, which he intended thus, by the use of satire, to con- 
demn. The fact of his having become a Montanist does 
not impair the value of his testimony as to a matter of fact. 
There is, however, in Wilberforce, a disposition to 
exaggerate every little circumstance which can be made 
to have the remotest bearing upon the point. It is only 
by aggregating such circumstances that he makes what 
seems a cumulative argument in favor of his position ; 
but his argument is an inverted cone, and has a poor 
basis on which to rest a faith which must receive an in- 
stitution so momentous in its influence, as a divine ordi 
nance. In fact, it is very apparent that the recognition 

and lier judgment as having special weight on account of her apostolic ori- 
gin ; but they do not involve the idea that the Bishop of Rome inherited all 
the authority of Peter. That, this very writer admits, was the result of a 
later development. 



102 THE EOMAN DOCTEINE OF UNITY. 

of the Papacy is a result of natural reason and not of 
faith — an intellectual conclusion ratlier than a spiritual 
act. 

4. It is admitted by these very writers that the Pri- 
macy of Peter was a very different thing from the Papal 
supremacy as it now appears. The latter has been the 
growth of centuries. Its development has been owing to 
political quite as much as to ecclesiastical causes ; but 
the one principle which has given it vitality, has been 
the idea of unity — the necessity of some power which 
should be an ultimate appeal in cases of difficulty and 
doubt. 

Says Ffulkes : 

" At first it seemed as though the supreme governorship of the Church 
had been entrusted to the converted emperors. Constantine assumed it 
immediately after his victory over Maxentius, as a trust committed to him. 

" On tidings of the rupture between Alexander and Arius, he despatched 
a joint letter to them both, in which one is censured for having raised im- 
prudent questions, and the other for having returned rash answers. Unable 
to bring them to terms by his remonstrances, it was he who conceived and 
carried out the plan of calling all the bishops of Christendom together, to 
pronounce upon their case. Here is a fact of prime importance in ecclesi- 
astical history. It should be written down in the largest characters, that 
what are called oecumenical councils, originated, not with the apostles or 
their successors, but with the first Christian emperor and his successors ; 
so much so that there is not one of them, at least of those designated oecu- 
menical by East and West, that was not convened by imperial mandate." 

" Another notable feature of the Constitution of these councils was that 
they directly involved the notion of universal monarchy. * * * 

" Gradually then as the whole Church assembled in oecumenical synod, 
It not only felt conscicus of having been convened by one Sovereign poten- 
tate, but it likewise saw the bishop of one see sitting at the head of the 
collective episcopate. Could it have been otherwise than a mere question 
of time, to delegate to him the same executive powers over Christendom 
generally, that had been already delegated to metropolitans over provin- 



THE KOMAN DOCTKINE OF UNITY. 103 

cial, and to patriarchs over diocesan Cliurches ? Could it have been other- 
wise regarded than as carrying out of received principles to their legitimate 
results; a logical consequence of assimilating ecclesiastical jurisdiction to 
that of the empire — the universal Church to the universal State ? " 

Again : 

" In the matter of appeals likewise, there can be no doubt but that 
Constantine and his successors received them from all parts of Christen- 
dom, and appointed judges to hear them, whose sentence they confirmed 
and executed. Previously, there had been no one Supreme Court of ap- 
peal in the Church ; now, there was not only one, but it vested in one su- 
preme potentate. There is not a heresy, from that of Paul of Samosata, 
nor a schism from that of Donatus, of any consequence for the first six cen- 
turies, in which their intervention is not recorded in some form or other. 
The earliest ecclesiastical historian had styled Constantine a "common 
bishop ;" the next in order, far from disputing it, expresses himself as fol- 
lows in a studied preface : We include the emperors in our history, because 
from the time that they became Christian, ecclesiastical affairs have de- 
pended on them, and the greatest councils have been and are held by their 
decree."— Ffulkes, pp. l'7-20. 

This view of the case is an admission that the recog- 
nition at last of the supremacy of the Pope of Rome, did 
not spring from any faith in it as a divine institution, 
but was in effect a conventional arrangement, which, 
grew out of the experienced necessity of some central au- 
thority for the purpose of maintaining unity. The most 
that can be claimed for it is, that it was providentially 
ordered and allowed. 

It requires nothing more than the admissions and ar- 
guments of these writers to establish the conclusion that 
the government of the Church under the Papacy is an 
essentially different constitution from that administered 
by the apostles in the first age of the Church. 

The Papacy is an ecclesiastical monarchy, which 



104: THE ROMAN DOCTEINE OF UNITY. 

claims to be universal — coextensive witli Christendom. 
The Chnrcli was constituted a universal spiritual polity, 
not yet arrived at the condition of a kingdom, but the 
kingdom in a mystery to be revealed in its perfection, at 
the return of the King from heaven. 

The rule of the Church in the hands of the first 
Apostles, was authority administered by a commission in 
constant communication through associated Prophets 
with the Head in the heavens, receiving thus intima- 
tions of His mind, and endowed with wisdom to carry 
the same into effect. 

Under the Papacy the Church is governed by a Yice- 
roy, for whose administration infallibility is claimed, 
but without any associated ordinances for ascertaining 
the mind of the Lord. The Papacy is an anticipation 
of the Kingdom, and a usurpation of the place of the 
Lord Himself. The term vicar of Christ implies that a 
single man can adequately fill the place of the Lord. A 
collective headship, consisting of a mmiber called by the 
Lord to be His representatives, is free from this objec- 
tion, while, at the same time, it satisfies the idea of a 
Catholic Supremacy. E^o substitute can perfectly fill 
the place of the Lord Himself. At His second coming 
He ajDpears as sole Head. In His absence He is repre- 
sented, not by one, but by Twelve, acting as one. 

One of the strongest arguments for the Papacy has 
been the assumption that it is the only way of solving 
the problem of unity. If, then, any other way can be 
shown as possible, this argument is so far neutralized. 



THE EOMAJSr DOCTEINE OF TOTITT. 105 

If an alternative can be presented, it proves nothing in- 
deed, but it relieves the mind from what might other- 
wise be regarded as a logical necessity. An hypothesis 
or a possibihty is not, indeed, an argmnent, but to certain 
states of mind it has at least the effect of a negative ar- 
gument. And so if it is shown that there is any other 
way by which Catholic unity can be realized than by the 
admission of the divine authority of the Papacy, such a 
suggestion tends to weaken in so far the force of argu- 
ments which might otherwise seem to some minds irre- 
sistible in its support. 

Such an hypothesis I have presented as a means of 
solving this problem. I hope it may at least serve the 
purpose of relieving some minds of embarrassing diffi- 
culties. 



5* 



CHAPTEE YII. 



THE CONSTITUENT UNTTIES. 



PriBciples annonnccd by St. Paul— One Body — One Spirit — One Hope — Ono Lord — 
One Faith— One Baptism — One God and Father of All — These the Principles by 
which Unity was to be preserved, and by which it is to be recovered — Theological 
aspect of these principles — Necessity of going back to first principles. 

In the preceding pages tlie unity of tlie Spirit has 
been considered as a result. The words of St. Paul that 
have been already referred to, in the fourth chapter of 
the Epistle to the Ephesians, present to us several con- 
stituent unities, all of which must be apprehended in 
order to the realization of the all-comprehensive unity. 
To these, in conclusion, I propose briefly to call atten- 
tion. 

" There is one Body and one Spirit, even as ye are 
called in one Hope of your calling, one Lord, one Faith, 
one Baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above 
all, and through all, and in you all." Let us consider 
them in detail. 

1. One Body. — Not many bodies united in a confed- 
eration, but one universal body. This is directly at va- 
riance with the notion of a variety of sects or sectarian 
organizations, and implies plainly that there can be no 



THE CONSTTTUENT UNTTIES. 107 

unity of the Spirit where separate ecclesiastical organi- 
zation is maintained and justified. It may not be clear 
how the existing evil is to be at once overcome — it may 
be unavoidable for a time that the existence of sects 
should be allowed ; but there can be no approximation 
to unity on the part of any individuals or communities 
by whom the sectarian condition is not disapproved and 
deprecated, and regarded only as an evil from which in 
time the Church is to be delivered. Consequently, no 
movements toward a confederation in which the respec- 
tive interests of the confederated sects are to be preserved, 
can be regarded as any approach to unity. The body is 
one, and its unity must be made manifest in every part 
and member, just as in the natural body the life is whole 
in every part. 

This conviction of the essential oneness of the body 
would have the effect to suppress active measures of sec- 
tarian proselyting, and rather turn the attention of men 
to the inquiry how they and their brethren could be de- 
livered from the evils of division, and enabled to attain 
the unity of the Spirit. This would remove one of the 
greatest evils of sectarianism, and incline Christian men 
to recognize the good that is in their brethren as well as 
to see and object to the evil. There can be no return to 
God without repentance, and the first fruits of repent- 
ance will be to renounce and condemn the sectarian 
principle in whatever form it may present itself. 

2. One Spirit. — The sectarian principle divides the 
Spirit. Instead of looking for diverse forms of mani- 



108 THE CONSTITUENT UNITIES. 

festation in one body, it requires a distinct form of mani- 
festation in each different body. This is its alleged jus- 
tification. The plea is made that all men are not alike, 
and that the manifestation of the Spirit must be different 
in different classes as well as individuals ; and in order 
thereto, these classes, with their different intellectual, 
aesthetic, and social tendencies, must be separately or- 
ganized. What is the consequence? First of all, the 
manifestation of the Spirit is hindered, because a partial 
operation can never be complete; and then each sepa- 
rate portion is hindered by its separation from sharing in 
the grace which may come to the others. This theory 
by which sects are justified is not warranted by facts. 
Whatever grace through the forbearance and long-suffer- 
ing of God may be found in one sect or section does not 
avail for others. The spirit of antagonism, or of secta- 
rian or denominational self-interest, hinders each sect 
from deriving benefit from the good that is in the others. 
The good that is in the Roman Catholic Church has 
little power over the Protestant, and vice vei'sd. The pe- 
culiar features of spiritual grace that appear in the Epis- 
copalian bodies, operate with very limited effect upon 
non-Episcopalians ; and so on throughout the catalogue. 
True it is that the Protestant Eeformation had a power- 
ful influence upon the Pom an Catholic Church, in com- 
pelling a " reformation in the head and members," which 
had for centuries been called for within the Church to 
no purpose. Methodism had a powerful effect in arous- 
ing the Church of England from its apathy and indiffer- 



THE CONSTITUENT "DNITIES. 109 

ence to the spiritual wants of the masses in England. 
Every onward movement, every true revival of a part, 
has had an effect upon other parts ; more, however, in the 
way of provoking to emulation than in the more excel- 
lent way of a general diffusion of life through the whole 
body. But it still remains, that when the Spirit of God 
acts at all in a divided Church, His action is divided, and all 
parts do not feel alike the movement of the pulses of the 
divine life. For tlie full manifestation of the power of 
the One Sphit there must he one body, in which all the 
members are organically knit together, holding the 
Head and drawing nourishment from Him by the 
joints and bands by which they are united, so that 
it may increase with the increase of God (Coloss. 
ii. 19). 

3. One Hope. — The hope which St. Paul referred to 
was the hope of the Lord's second Coming, and of our gath- 
ering together unto Him (1 Thess. i. 10; 2 Thess. ii. 1). 
This was the " one hope of their calling," which, giving 
to all of them a common object of interest, tended pow- 
erfully to remove causes of division. This hope involved 
the perfecting of the body, and its being " presented as a 
chaste virgin to Christ " at His appearing (2 Cor. xi. 2). 
It was not the mere hope of happiness after death — of 
individual salvation — but a hope for the body, the 
Church — an interest in the Body as the instrument God 
would use for the fulfilment of His purposes toward cre- 
ation (Ephes. iii. 10, 11) — that Paul here refers to. The 
influence of such a hope in drawing faithful men to- 



110 THE CONSTITUENT UNITIES. 

gether, and in exciting them to endeavor to keep the 
unity of the Spirit, mnst be obvious. With such an end 
in view — the participation of the glory of the risen Lord, 
reigning with Him in His kingdom, and serving under 
Him in the government and rule of the universe — an end 
which can only be attained by the Church perfected in 
unity — an end which separation and disunion must frus- 
trate and postpone — the motive to preserve unity would 
be most strong, as the sympathy and fellowship it would 
inspire would be deep and intimate. 

The loss of this hope removes, therefore, one of the 
strongest influences which is to bind into one the meni- 
bei's of the body of Christ. Its recovery is one of the 
essential conditions of any approach toward unity. There 
can be no progress in that direction without this as the 
common end and object of all desire. 

It is to be observed that in the attempt to effect the 
Tinion of sects, a common hope seems to have been over- 
looked as one of the essential constituents of unity. And 
truly, the mere hope of individual salvation, which is all 
that the popular religion dwells upon, has little in it to 
bind men into one, since no sect — not even the Roman 
Catholic practically — really affirms that salvation is not 
possible out of its communion. 

If, however, we rise up to the higher ground of a 
hope for the Church — for the body of Christ, as the Per- 
fect Bride of the Lamb to be prepared for the marriage — 
to be caught away, and come with Him when He shall 
appear in His glory, a different object is presented to 



1 



THE CONSTITUENT TTNITIES. Ill 

view. Individual salvation is lost sight of, and all per- 
sonal interests are swallowed up in the one Hope of the 
glory which shall be conferred upon the Bride of the 
Lamb. Here is a motive to unity, and a force operative 
to effect it. 

4. One Lord. — Jesus Christ is the Lord. God hath 
given Him power over all flesh. All power is given 
unto Him in heaven and on earth. All things are to be 
brought into subjection unto Him. He is to be revealed 
as King of kings, and Lord of lords. He is Lord, not as 
in right of His Grodhead, but as the prerogative of His 
manhood, for Lordship was the Father's gift to Him in 
reward of His obedience as man. We see not yet all 
things put under Him. In this present dispensation the 
Church is the sphere where His Lordship is exercised and 
acknowledged, and this acknowledgment is one of. the 
essentials of unity. There must be conceded to Him the 
right to do His pleasure in His own house. iN^either 
directly nor by implication must men deprive Him of 
that right, claiming to shape the constitution of the 
Church according to their own conceits, or denying Him 
the right to call from the Heavens and send forth those 
whom He may choose, to rule and order His house ac- 
cording to the will of His Father. 

He must be seen as One Lord. But how can the 
one lordship be seen in the Church when there is no re- 
cognized centre from which the Head can communicate 
with all the parts, and direct their movements toward a 
common end ; but every fragment has its own self-im- 



112 THE CONSTITUENT UNITIES. 

posed constitution, and struggles to get itself a place and 
name of honor at the expense of its rivals ? 

Jesus Christ was sent to be both a Prince and a 
Saviour. His Lordship therefore — His right to rule, re- 
quires distinct recognition. In words, the Lordship of 
Christ would not be denied by any who profess to believe 
the Gospel ; but closer thought upon the subject, would 
disclose a significance in these words which would be 
found to reveal some of the causes of existing divisions, 
and to suggest their remedy. 

5. One Faith. — By this is meant, doubtless, tlie Faith 
once delivered to the Saints : the great facts of the 
Gospel history, with the truths which they involve as 
affirmed in the Apostles', and afterwards expanded in the 
Nicene creed. The Incarnation, sufferings, resurrection, 
and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ; His coming 
again to judge the living and the dead ; the sending of 
the Holy Ghost ; the calling of the Church ; the resurrec- 
tion of the body and the life everlasting, as the same is 
revealed in the Scriptures. This is the one Faith, and it 
is implied that it must be held as one — with a common 
conviction — a common interpretation. Tlie same for- 
mula held, with variant interpretations, would not be an 
element of unity, but the reverse. As this point has 
come under our consideration in previous chapters, I 
need not dwell upon it here. 

6. One Baptism. — Into the One Kame, of the Father, 
the Son, and the Holy Ghost ; for one end — the remis- 
sion of sins ; knitting the baptized mysteriously into one 



• 



THE CONSTITUENT UNITIES. 113 

bodj, of wliicli tliey are thus constituted members. This 
is one of the elements of imity and must be recognized 
as such — the outward ordinance, the means of initiation — 
implying that the body is a real, visible constitution ; as 
necessary as the faith of which it is the Seal. And this 
involves, also, an apprehension of the standing into 
which the Baptized are brought as the members of Christ 
and partakers of His grace. 

T. One God and Father of all, who is above all, and 
through all, and in you all. 

These words serve to complete the circle of unities 
in which the unity of the Spirit has its full exercise. We 
are not to understand that St. Paul here designed to 
assert the unity of the Godhead as against the Pagan 
mythology. ISTor will this text serve any purpose of sus- 
taining Unitarian doctrine. The Father is the one 
source of all being ; every thing that exists proceeds from 
Him as the one fountain of existence, and no enumer- 
ation of the great principles of truth by which the unity 
of the Spirit is effected would be complete without lead- 
ing up to Him from whom all things proceed. The 
" One Spirit " has been named, who dwells and mani- 
fests His presence in One Body ; the " One Lord Jesus 
Christ " who is the Son of God, of the same substance 
with the Father ; and now we are led up to the " One 
God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, 
and in you all." These last words, " in you all," may, 
perhaps, be regarded as the specially significant words 
in this passage. The oneness of the members of Christ 



114 THE OONSTITUElsrT UNITIES. 

in the Father and the Son, is, as was shown in the 
first chapter, the ultimate reality, and in order to the 
preservation of the unity of the Spirit, this truth must be 
seen and apprehended. 

Since, then, these are the principles by the apprehen- 
sion of which the unity of the Spirit which existed at the 
first was to be preserved, it is by the same principles that 
unity now broken, must be recovered. Their considera- 
tion covers a wide field — nothing less, in fact, than the 
whole field of Theology as related to the Church. This 
is a branch of theology that has been much overlooked, 
and, in fact, among non-Episcopalian Protestants, almost 
universally ignored. The subject of the Church has 
been treated as a side issue, of secondary importance, or 
none at all. It has not, in the received theological sys- 
tems of the day, been regarded as having any relation to 
the inward life, and the assertion of any principles in re- 
gard to it is almost always denounced as bigotry. 

The ancient creeds included the Church — the Holy 
Catholic Church, as an article of the Faith. It stands 
with the Incarnation — the mission of the Holy Ghost — 
the life everlasting. This would seem to suggest that 
the doctrine concerning the Church was equal in import- 
ance to the others with which it is associated in the most 
ancient symbols, and had some intimate connection with 
them. And what does it involve ? Plainly the rela- 
tions which the Lord Jesus Christ sustains to the body 
which the Father has chosen out of the world — the man- 
ner and form in which He exercises His rule upon the 



THE CONSTITUENT UNITIES. 115 

eai-tli — the means and ordinances by wliicL He dispenses 
His grace^the way in wbicTi the Father is to be wor- 
shipped, and the purpose to be accomplished by the 
Church. All these are questions essentially theological, 
as much so as the doctrines of Incarnation and atone- 
ment, and involve principles upon which Christian people 
should not be left in doubt or uncertainty. 

But these are questions which are for the most part 
ignored or put out of sight. It is contended that they 
are not essential. If by this is meant that a full recog- 
nition of them is not an absolute sine qua non of indi- 
vidual salvation, it may be admitted. But as the pur- 
pose of God involves something more than the salvation 
of individuals, even the perfecting of the Bride of His 
Son, the truth is not to be regarded exclusively in its re- 
lation to the salvation of individuals. Whatever is re- 
quisite to the completeness of the system of divine reve- 
lation is essential^ however it may or may not affect indi- 
vidual salvation. " Every word of God is pure," and no 
individual, much more no Church, is perfect and com- 
plete in all the will of God, which does not hold to and 
assert all that God has revea,led. regarding the relations 
of the Church, as well as of individuals to the Lord. 

It is only when these which I have called constituent 
miities are apprehended, that the true nature and neces- 
sity of unity can be seen at all. "Without them the dif- 
ferent religious communities are only so many voluntary 
societies, with no common bond ; and although they may 
agree to differ, they never can attain to that higher and 



116 THE CONSTITUENT UNITIES. 

mysterious unity whicli is a reflex of tliat in the Most 
Holy. 

It would seem, therefore, that it is necessary to go 
back to first principles in order to any progress toward 
the true unity of the Spirit. The recovery of unity is 
not a matter of feeling, but of principle. Any coming 
together of divided sects upon the mere ground of good 
feeling, of kindness of heart, of mutual personal confi- 
dence, would not fulfil the conditions of unity. Some- 
thing is gained when Christian bodies that have been 
separated or have grown asunder, have ceased to bite 
and devour one another, and have come to recognize the 
good that is in those from whom they are separated. 
This may be regarded as a step in advance, an improve- 
ment upon that time when every sect regarded it as its 
chief duty to oppose and contend with all who did not 
subscribe to all its usages and dogmas. Still more is 
gained when difierent sects or parties are so enabled to 
enlarge their basis of doctrine as to merge their differ- 
ences without compromising theii* convictions. But the 
real value of any movements of this nature is in their 
tendency to lead Cliristian men to see more clearly 
the constituent unities — the apostolically announced 
principles which are requisite to preserving the unity of 
the Spirit in the bond of peace. Existing prejudices and 
long-standing convictions are hindrances to the recogni- 
tion of a system that is materially difierent from what 
has been received, however logically it may be presented ; 
and it is, therefore, necessary to go back to first princi- 



THE CONSTITUENT UNITIES. 117 

pies in order to change tlie position ffoin wliicli tlie sub- 
ject is seen, and enable the observer to view it in new 
lights and relations. 

In presenting the views set forth in the previous 
pages, the writer has not overlooked this difficulty, or 
been unaware of the hindrances which the reception of 
the popular rehgious system presents to the admission of 
the conclusions here exhibited. But a sharp contrast is 
sometimes more effectual to awaken thought than an 
easy transition. The movements that succeed in chang- 
ing the face of society are those which are radical, and 
such is the character of the doctrine defended in these 
pages. The unity here proposed is radically different 
from that popularly assumed, even in the Episcopalian 
bodies, and as such it claims the attention of thoughtful 
Christian men. There is no point of contact between a 
system which involves a truly Catholic organization, and 
one which looks no farther than the confederation of a 
number of voluntary societies. Dread of the Papacy 
has, doubtless, precluded, on the part of Protestants, all 
thoughts of Catholicity ; but if that evil can be avoided, 
the subject may be more candidly considered. And 
then, if the minds of Christian men can be raised up to 
the recognition of a constant supernatural presence of 
the Holy Ghost in the Church, they may be enabled to 
see, first, the -possibility, and afterwards the reality of a 
divine interposition to restore the long lost unity of the 
Body of Christ. 

But the writer would not urge upon any, hasty or in- 



118 THE CONSTITUENT UNITIES. 

considerate changes in their Church relations. The move- 
ments of isolated individuals, however they may affect 
themselves, have little or no effect upon the general re- 
sult of the recovery of unity. It is in the performance 
of duty in the relations in which one is providentially 
placed, that light upon one's path is received, and the 
will of God made known. Activity of mind, interest in 
questions of importance, is of more consequence than 
the right or wrong determinations of individuals. "When 
there is activity, the truth has some chance ; when the 
general mind is dull and sluggish, truth and error alike 
pass unheded. 

The first condition of any progress in a right direc- 
tion will be a conviction that there is a radical error in 
the generally received views of this subject. This will 
open a place for repentance, and without repentance 
there can be no return. Departure from the ways of 
God, however insensibly it may have been fallen into, 
can only be healed by repentance. What shall be the 
substitute for the received system must be learned fi'om 
the study of Holy Scripture, and for this I have en- 
deavored to furnish some help. The existing condition 
of the rehgious world, one would think, was enough to 
prove that an error nothing less than radical held pos- 
session of the consciences of men, and that a great and 
radical change was required. 

And this change is not one that can be postponed for 
centuries. The signs of the times warn us that the 
period of fierce and active conflict with the powers of 



THE CONSTITUENT UNITIES. 119 

Antichrist is near at hand, when all the strength that can 
be drawn from a divinely ordained unity will be needed 
to defend each and every individual from the seductive 
power which shall come with " all deceiveableness of 
unrighteousness." It is only as members of the Body 
of His Son that we receive the grace of God ; and it is 
only in the faith of that membership that we can " with- 
stand in the evil day." That faith maybe firm, we must 
stand in unity, and not in separateness. Sectarianism 
takes away the defences, and leaves those who are in- 
fected by it open to all the assaults of the adversary. 
Blindly, unconsciously, are men and communities now 
being led into error and unbelief, because they recognize 
no divine ordinances whereby they may be bound to- 
gether in the support and confession of the Faith. 

When Babylon, the city of confusion, is destroyed, 
then shall those in whom the unity of the Father and 
the Son is manifested, appear united as the chaste and 
unspotted Bride of the Lamb, ready for the marriage. 



1 



■ 



